


Acting Up

by omgbubblesomg



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Actor Bucky, Amnesia, Amnesiac Bucky, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Time, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Past Torture, Pining, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, friends to strangers to enemies to boyfriends to friends to lovers, until CA: TWS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-01-16 07:50:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21267581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omgbubblesomg/pseuds/omgbubblesomg
Summary: Nat materializes into the space James vacates. “That was awful to watch,” she says. “Tony’s worried we’re going to have to get a restraining order on you.”“I thought it went okay,” Steve tells her, eyes still on James’s departing back. Even the way hewalksis the same.“You were, like, 2 inches from his face. I’m pretty sure you sniffed him.”OR:Steve finds someone who looks exactly like his dead best friend, but actor James Smith doesn’t have any memory of Steve, or Brooklyn, or, well, anything at all. Steveknowshe’s Bucky, but no one else will believe him, especially when Hydra is making a return and a mysterious threat known as the Winter Soldier is on the move.





	1. It’s for the KIDS, Steve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~With art from [Huntress79!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huntress79/pseuds/Huntress79)~~
> 
> Well now you know why I've been so quiet lately! I've been working on this huge Stucky slow burn 😀 This is my first bang and I'm very {insert the word for simultaneously excited and shitting myself}! I've finished about 90% of this fic, and edited at least half of that. So I hope to be posting pretty regularly. <strike>Which could of course mean any schedule under the sun</strike>
> 
> Many thanks to Archie for letting me join the stucky big bang waaay after the close of sign-ups, and a huge thank you to Huntress for agreeing to join in! Another big thank you to GertieCraign, HazelDomain, and Metarachel, who aren't even in this fandom but nevertheless subjected themselves to being sent character ideas, fight scenes, and out-of-context smut snippets at 3am for the last few months. Your confused yet stalwart support means the world 👅👅
> 
> Enjoy the ride xx

It starts innocuously enough. The powers that be—which Steve thinks is really just Fury with an agenda—want the Avengers to be more palatable to a modern audience.

“No,” Steve says when he hears the plan. And then, “Hell no,” when Tony walks in holding his WWII uniform.

“Come on, Cap! It’ll be fun!”

“For _who?”_

But he’s not as stubborn as people seem to think he is. And when Hill explains that it’s for the kids (“They love this show, Steve. You’ll be giving joy to a whole generation,”) he relents.

And that’s how he finds himself in a studio with the other Avengers, subtly trying to scoop the cheap blue cotton out of his asscrack.

“Why am I the only one wearing the shit version of my uniform?” he hisses. He really shouldn’t be surprised when half the team clutch their chests and gasp _“Language!”_ in the most scandalised tones they can muster.

“That joke’s getting old,” he tells them acidly. Tony somehow makes sparks come out of his chest piece and Clint pretends to give him CPR. Steve ignores them and tries to also ignore the way his uniform is going to saw him in half from the asscrack upwards.

A tech runs them through the script. The whole episode is forty minutes, but they’ve each got scenes comprising less than 2 minutes long. Or so he’s told. He eyes the big green walls with suspicion.

“That’s for special effects,” Tony stage-whispers. “It’s this thing we do in the 21st Century where we make movies actually look good.”

Steve shoves him into the nearest rubbish bin.

“Captain Rogers!” A tech runs over and Steve innocently wipes his hands while Tony rights himself and peels an orange rind off his suit. “Captain Rogers, there’s been a small change in your lines.”

Steve squeezes the bridge of his nose. “Oh God,” he mutters. What else could they possibly do to him? He’s already basically a National Anthem on legs.

“We’ve brought in an actor to play Sergeant Barnes and we—”

“No,” Steve says vehemently. “Absolutely not.”

“If you’ll just—”

_“Absolutely not.”_

The rest of the team wander over. Nat raises an eyebrow at him. Her holsters are empty, but Steve is under no illusions that she’s actually unarmed. The lack of visible weapons is somehow even worse. “Everything okay over here?” she asks, turning to the tech guy who visibly loses a few years of his life.

“Er, I just, I was sent to tell Mr. Steve, I mean Captain Sir, I mean—”

“They want to bring in an actor to play Bucky Bear,” Tony says, somehow looking as coolly coiffed as he had before going into the bin. He flicks a shred of lettuce off his sleeve.

“They want to bring in an actor to play Sergeant Barnes,” Nat repeats with absolutely no inflection. Her pose doesn’t change at all, but her raised eyebrow goes ever-so-slightly higher. “You want to bring in an actor to play the role of the best friend who died in front of Captain America.”

“Yes. I mean no, I mean. It wasn’t my decision I just—” Nat doesn’t step forward, but the tech guy steps back.

“It’s okay!” someone calls from behind them. “I don’t mind, you don’t have to do the Bucky scene.”

It’s Steve’s turn to lose a few years of his life.

He’s the first one to turn around, which means the rest of the team see his reaction before they see what he’s reacting to.

There are planes flying overhead and there’s gunfire in the distance. Men take shelter in the trenches, sleeping where they sit. Someone is playing an out-of-tune harmonica and there’s a game of cards nearby and it smells like it might rain later and Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes is walking towards him, lip quirked and eyes bright.

“Uh oh,” Tony says under his breath.

“You don’t have to do the scene,” Bucky says. “I’ll tell them I felt sick so you don’t have to give em an excuse.” He winks and Steve immediately loses all the blood in his face and hands.

“Bucky,” he breathes.

“James,” Bucky corrects. “I know, I know. The resemblance is uncanny.” He’s wider across the shoulders than Steve remembers. His left arm is at an odd angle. And he’s grown his hair out. His smile, though. His smile is pure, radiant, 100% Bucky Barnes.

“Captain Rogers,” Tony says, pitching his voice to sound like Steve’s. “Pleasure to meet you.” Tony grabs Steve's forearm and thrusts it forward, into the hand Bucky had been holding out. Bucky grips and shakes, grinning. His fingers curl around Steve’s like they fucking belong there. Because they _do._ Steve grips back way too late, and Bucky’s hand is already gone.

“I’ll tell the director,” Bucky says, turning away.

“Huh?” Steve says. Bucky’s _leaving._ He’s suddenly on a train, speeding through frigid air. Bucky’s hand misses his. Bucky lurches and Steve feels the loss of gravity in his own stomach and then there’s just snow and Steve doesn’t even get a chance to say _I love you._

The train rolls unconcerned.

“Come on, Cap,” someone grunts nearby. He turns to look. Clint is pressed against his side, straining.

“What are you doing?” he asks stupidly. His lips are numb. He looks up but Bucky is gone. Wait, was he there to begin with?

“Getting you somewhere with less cameras,” Tony replies.

“Huh?”

He looks around. Still not Bucky. Clint and Sam are trying to shove him backwards. As soon as he realises, he takes a step back and they fall after him, apparently having been using their entire weight to try and get him to move.

“You could help,” Sam tells Tony, still trying to shove Steve in the chest. Tony gestures at his suit as if to say, _Could I?_

“I have to—” Steve says, dazedly.

Sam shoves him backwards. “No, you don’t.”

“But that—”

“Nope.”

“He was—”

_“Steve.”_

Clint’s hanging off one of his arms like a child swinging on the monkey bars. Sam’s got his shoulder in Steve’s chest, and Nat is… Well, Nat’s just planted herself in front of them with her hands on her hips.

“Alright,” he says. “Alright, I’m going.” Steve lets them direct him to the nearest empty room and falls into the first available chair. Nat follows a minute later.

“They’ve agreed to cut the Bucky scene,” she tells them. “I called one of Stark's cars for James.” Steve gets back up.

“Wait,” he says.

Sam kicks the back of his knee and he goes straight back down. “Cap, you are _not_ running out there after some poor actor.”

“That was Bucky.” He still can’t feel his face.

“They did a good job with the makeup,” Tony agrees.

“Bucky is…”

“Bucky died in 1945,” Nat says gently. “Steve, snap out of it. It’s 2019. People can’t see you getting Medusa’d and turning to stone in public.”

He’s not really listening.

“Bucky,” he says again.

“Maybe we should cancel,” Clint whispers behind him.

“How did Bucky…”

“It wasn’t Bucky, Steve.”

Sam comes around in front of him and bends down so their faces are level. “Cap, you know what year you’re in, right?”

Steve looks at him dubiously. “2019, apparently.”

“So if Bucky’s alive he would be? 100 years old?”

Steve gets a terrible pang of uncertainty. “I survived 100 years,” he points out hopefully.

“And you’ve got supersoldier serum and sub-arctic ice to thank for that, don’t you?”

Steve squirms in his seat. “But he looks just like—”

“That pornstar,” Clint says dreamily.

There’s silence for a few seconds.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s what Cap was about to say,” Tony finally hazards.

“Come on, don’t pretend you haven’t seen Buck Bronco or whatever his name is.” Clint whips out his phone and starts typing. “He does Avengers role play. It’s _hot.”_ Tony puts his hand over the phone screen and pushes it away.

“You know what, Katniss, I think we’re good.”

Clint shrugs. “Whatever. I’m just pointing out that sometimes people look like other people, and they use it for money. That guy—” he waves his hand in the direction of the set “—has clearly found his calling doing acting gigs. Maybe he and Buck Bronco are the same guy.” He winks.

“Please, as if Friday would ever let Cap on camera with a pornstar.”

There’s a pause as everyone waits for Friday to confirm this. When her voice finally comes out of the speaker on Tony’s watch, she sounds a little sheepish. “I’ll run a background check.”

Steve’s growing more unsure by the second. “It was him,” he says. He looks around the room, but no one will meet his eyes.

The tech guy chooses that moment to poke his head through the door. “Oh, here you are! The director’s ready to go when you guys are. They cut the Bucky scene.” He smiles hopefully at Nat, like he’s done her a favour.

“Dunno if we’re gonna film today after all,” Tony interrupts. “Sorry, pal.” Then, “Friday, bring the cars round to the front.”

“You’re cancelling?”

“I don’t want to cancel,” Steve says suddenly.

“Friday, prepare to cut all electronics in the building for 5 minutes. We’ve got a compromised Cap and way too many film grads.”

“I don’t want to cancel,” Steve says again. “I want to do the scene. I want to do the Bucky scene.”

The tech guy looks so relieved he’s at risk of passing out. It hasn’t been a good day for his nervous system. “Thank God,” he says. “I’ll go get James.” He disappears before the rest of the team can say anything else.

“Rogers,” Nat warns. Steve quails a little but heads for the door.

“I want to do the Bucky scene,” he says again. He’s not quite fast enough to make it out of the room before he hears a chorus of groans from behind him. Tony says something about an affidavit.

He heads back to the studio and breathes like Bruce taught him.

Big, slow.

_Big_ger. _Slow_er.

It’s not him. It can’t be him.

Steve made a mistake 70 years ago and Bucky paid for it with his life. There’s no amount of wishful thinking in the world that can change that.

But he’s still going to do the scene.

It’s for the _kids,_ after all.

He’s almost completely convinced himself that his intentions are good and that Bucky isn’t Bucky, when Bucky Barnes walks back into the studio.

It isn’t any easier the second time around.

At least this time his brain doesn’t automatically send him back to the trenches. But it’s surreal in the extreme to watch Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes look at him, smile, then saunter over.

“So they tell me we’re shooting,” he says to Steve. “Gotta admit, I was kinda bummed. I almost got to ride in one of the Stark driverless cars.”

Steve nods mechanically. “Yes,” he breathes, with every ounce of normality he can muster. From the look he gets in return he gathers that it wasn’t much.

“So, uh, have you done much acting stuff since the forties?”

Oh God. Small talk. Steve’s one true weakness. “No,” he manages. There’s a bit of gold in Bucky’s hair. Er. James’s hair. Did Bucky have gold in his hair? Would it feel different to the rest of his hair? Would James let Steve touch his hair?

“Well, don’t worry about the scene. I’m good at what I do.” Bucky, no, _James,_ winks.

“Okay,” Steve says.

James smiles encouragingly, like Steve’s doing an excellent job at maintaining conversation. “Oh, there’s one thing, though. I know your Bucky used to carry a holster on his left side, but is it okay if I do it on the right?” He raps knuckles on his left arm, which rings faintly beneath his shirt. “I’m not as ambidextrous as your friend, I’m afraid.”

“Sure,” Steve says, unsure what he’s agreeing to. He’s vaguely aware that he’s said only a handful of words in the entire conversation. “Prosthetics are cool,” he blurts, when nothing else occurs to him.

“Thanks!” James rolls his sleeve to reveal a metal wrist beneath a black glove. “It’s on the fritz at the moment, the stupid thing. Gotta get a new tool kit so I can take a look at it. You know how it is.” He waves his other hand. “Well, no I guess you don’t. But you don’t want to hear about that!” He laughs and scratches the back of his head in the exact same way Bucky used to when he was embarrassed.

Steve finds himself caught between the polite response he _should_ give: _Don’t worry about it,_ and the honest truth he _wants_ to give: _I want to hear everything about you._

What he ends up saying, is: “I think it’s cool.”

James smiles in a way that Steve utterly fails to reciprocate, then claps him on the shoulder. “Ha. Thanks. Anyway, I’d better find my costume. See you at call!” He wanders off in the direction of the prep rooms.

Nat materialises into the space James vacates. “That was awful to watch,” she says. “Tony’s worried we’re going to have to get a restraining order on you.”

“I thought it went okay,” Steve tells her, eyes still on James’s departing back. Even the way he _walks_ is the same.

“You were, like, 2 inches from his face the entire time. I’m pretty sure you sniffed him at one point.”

Well that breaks him out of his trance. “I did _not!”_

“Whatever. Find your shield. We’re doing photos in five.”

Steve glances towards the prep rooms, but James is already gone. “Fine,” he says. “Let’s get this over with.”

Nat shepherds him towards the photo area where the rest of the team has already assembled. Steve grimaces as he joins them. Clint mouths _Pornstar?_ at him from the other side of the room, with a hand sign that Steve is glad he’s not familiar with.

“Shut up,” he mutters at the room in general.

They laugh at him. The assholes.

Half an hour later they start laughing again because James comes out of prep wearing Bucky’s uniform and Steve’s mouth falls open. If he thought James had looked familiar before, it’s nothing to seeing him in the blue pea coat and army-issue pants. He’s not holding any weapons—this is a _kid’s_ show, after all—but they’ve given him a radio pack and his belt has an assortment of holsters. His hair is pulled back which somehow doesn’t make him look any less like Bucky. If anything it _enhances_ his brow, and the curve of his cheekbones, and—

Tony wallops him with a Mjölnir replica.

He snaps his mouth closed and shoves Tony towards where the rest of the team are far enough away that they won’t be able to hear them.

“Hi,” he says, when James joins him in front of the green screen. “You look. Good.”

From his peripheries he can see Clint talking animatedly. Probably translating what Steve’s saying, the lip-reading _traitor._

“You too! Is this the actual uniform you wore in the war?”

“A replica,” Steve admits.

“Hot.”

Steve chokes. Is James… Is this… Is he _flirting?_

James grins. “I hear you’re even a comic book hero. I bet I read your comics when I was a kid.”

The sentence comes out a bit weird and Steve squints at him. “Huh?”

James shrugs. “Retrograde amnesia.” He taps his head. “Only got a couple of years in me.”

Steve must look as shocked as he feels because James bumps his shoulder against Steve’s, laughing. “It’s no biggie, seriously. Apparently it’s why I’m _such_ a good actor. I can play any role, y’know.” He winks like he’s telling a joke that only he and Steve are in on.

“I didn’t even know that was possible,” Steve admits. “Sorry that you—”

“Don’t mention it. It doesn’t bother me! But if I had any choice in the matter, I’m sure I would have been a big fan of your movies.” James grins broadly and looks so much like Bucky that Steve has to grab for the nearest surface as his world once again tilts dangerously close to the 40s. James quickly turns away.

“You don’t even remember your childhood?” Steve croaks.

James is studying the stitching in his jacket, either because he’s noticed a loose thread or as a polite way of pretending not to see Steve once again briefly losing his sanity.

“Flashes,” he admits. “Though I’m told it could be my brain just making shit up. I remember a lot of snow.”

“It snows in Brooklyn,” Steve says, and only after he says it does he realise how hopeful he sounds.

James eyes him. “I bet it does,” he says slowly. “I’ve never been to Brooklyn.”

Steve’s face heats and he can see Clint facepalming from the corner of his eye. “Right,” he says. “I know, I just, sorry I just, you remind me of Buck. Obviously.” He blushes further. “It just made me remember my own childhood.”

James smiles nervously. “Yeah, uh, that’s kinda my job. Is this… Is this going to be a problem? I, jeez, I mean I’m sorry you lost your friend and all but like, you know I’m not _actually_ him, right?”

Steve nods quickly, and stutters over another apology. No matter what his addled brain thinks he has to remember that _this isn’t Bucky._

It’s not Bucky.

_It’s not Bucky._

He’s saved from any further embarrassment by a stagehand ushering them onto set. He’s shown the markers one last time and fortunately he gets to put his helmet on, which helps to cover up how red his cheeks are. He raises his shield to face an invisible enemy and he’s surprised at just how familiar this is. Even with the big green walls and the cameras hanging from huge metal contraptions, everything feels the same as when he’d done this decades ago. He relaxes into it.

He shares a grin with Bucky—no wait, James—and then the cameras are rolling and James is in front of him, showing him the way through a thicket of fake trees as though they’re really on a mission. James turns to point over to some imagined destination, and as he turns Steve notices a silver slice of skin behind his ear. It’s… a scar. He knows it’s a scar. He even knows where it’s from. He had put it there himself, when he was ten years old and learning how to use a slingshot. Bucky had been a _terrible_ teacher.

“Captain Rogers, that’s your cue,” someone calls.

His own voice comes from a distance. “How did you get that scar?”

James looks at him curiously as the cameras reset around them.

Except it’s not James.

It’s him.

It _is_ Bucky.

It’s _Bucky._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Series-E defense bonds: Every comment or kudos is a bullet in the barrel of your best guy's gun


	2. Believable Theories Only

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I’ll make you a deal. You find a plausible reason for James Smith to be Bucky Barnes, and I’ll give you his address. Sound fair?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Gertie "Nat is my favourite" Craign and also to Archie "No One Is Allowed To Leave The Bang" Mod. 
> 
> I had a bit of fun with the format of this chapter. I've never done texting in a fic so let me know if it works for you!

He wakes in the Avengers medbay. Nat has her fingers steepled and is looking at him over them. She is so still that he gets the uncanny feeling that she’s been sitting there watching him sleep for quite some time.

“H—” he begins. Nat cuts right across him.

“One,” she holds up her finger, “I knocked you out as soon as the cameras stopped rolling. Two, Tony sent James home with a nice big Avengers gift basket to say sorry for the creepy Captain staring at him while he was working. Three, you’ve been asleep for two hours. Four, you’re on lock down until you agree not to chase down any poor unsuspecting actors. Five, you talk in your sleep. Any questions?”

Steve blinks. He looks at the door. He looks back at her. “What did I say in my sleep?”

“You sang the entire _Star-Spangled Man.”_

Steve squints at her and can’t for the life of him figure out if she’s joking or not. She stares back, completely at ease.

“So,” he eventually says. “Bucky.”

Nat holds up her hand. “Listen, Steve, you’re a grown man and no one’s actually going to keep you locked up here. But you have to realise that your judgement is compromised.”

“It’s him, Nat.”

She eyes him. “I’ve already checked his background. I’m sorry, but he’s just a small-time actor.”

“Nat.”

“I’ll admit the amnesia thing is weird but, Steve. He’s clearly a vet. He’s missing an arm. You were in the army, you remember what war did to some of the soldiers. Amnesia isn’t exactly unusual.”

“Nat…”

“I know you’re not going to let this go, but please don’t go running through Hollywood trying to find him. No one’s going to trust us to protect the planet if our Captain isn’t thinking straight.”

“I can’t just let him—”

“I know. I wouldn’t expect you to forget him. But I’ll make you a deal. You find a plausible reason for James Smith to be Bucky Barnes, and I’ll give you his address. Sound fair?”

That’s going to be easy. Because James _is_ Bucky.

He sighs and eyes her outstretched hand, taking it in his own. Nat smiles back at him and they sit peaceably for a moment.

“So,” he finally says. “You knocked me out while I had my back turned?”

“What are friends for?”

* * *

“Friday,” he says as soon as he gets out of medbay. “I need your help.”

“I’m at your service,” Friday replies smoothly. “Though I should warn you that if your request involves James Smith then I will be unable to assist.”

Steve curses quietly. “Dammit, Nat.”

* * *

The episode airs at a reasonable thirty thousand views.

The bootlegged YouTube version hits one hundred thousand in 48 hours.

* * *

A panel of women calling themselves the Breakfast Bunch judge photos of James and Bucky, picking them apart piece by piece.

“His chin is different!” one of them laughs.

“That’s just the angle.”

“I haven’t seen that photo of Mr. Barnes before. My, my.”

“Hilda! Stop it, you horndog!”

“He can Sergeant my bedroom if you know what I mean.”

They laugh and fan themselves.

“Oh, but wouldn’t he look good in an updo.”

They laugh again.

Steve tells Friday to turn off the show.

It doesn’t matter what anyone else sees in either James Smith or Sergeant Barnes. All he can see is Bucky.

* * *

“I was frozen for sixty-six years and I survived,” he tells Nat.

“You’re a super-soldier,” she says without looking up.

“Yeah, but—”

“Believable theories only, Steve.”

* * *

Oprah brings James on her show. They talk about his experiences as an actor with a disability. He smiles at her with the sunny radiance that Steve remembers from their childhood. It’s the same smile Bucky gave to the dames he took dancing, but it’s nothing like the smile he used to reserve just for Steve.

He finds himself in the elevator without knowing where he’s going. “Captain?” Friday prompts, and Steve blinks and looks around. He doesn’t have an address, just the unshakeable knowledge that Bucky is alive, Bucky is _alive,_ and he has to get to him.

He turns around and forces himself back into his empty apartment.

He watches the interview three times in a row.

Oprah asks James about the future, and James winks and says there might be something big coming. “The episode with Captain Rogers certainly raised my profile,” he laughs. “I had to get myself an agent!”

Steve pauses on his laughter, and touches the screen.

_Bucky,_ he thinks.

* * *

Clint sends him a link to an edited version of the Avengers Episode. When he presses play he finds it’s just a five-second clip of his ass on repeat, set to something called _My Hips Don’t Lie._

“Why did you make me wear the old uniform?” he grumbles when he next sees Tony. Tony just claps him on the shoulder and turns his phone around to show Steve another video set to the same song, but this time of his crotch.

Steve sighs deeply, takes Tony’s phone, and drops it in his coffee.

* * *

“Zola was experimenting on P. O. W.s in the war,” he tells Nat at breakfast. “Maybe Bucky got a knock-off serum then.”

She sips her tea and eyes him. “Hundreds of people got knock-off serums after Rebirth, and they all either died or showed no change.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know he’s enhanced.”

“James Smith has five years of medical records and acting interviews, and none of them mention any abnormal healing, agility, or senses.”

“Maybe he’s…” He thinks for a moment. “Lying?”

“Steve…”

* * *

The comments get lewder the longer the video stays up, but he can’t seem to stop himself from scrolling through them. The longer he reads, the more he realises that he should have taken the team’s advice and not gone on camera with James. In every scene they share he looks like a twelve-year-old kid meeting an idol. At one point he completely misses his cue and James says the line instead while Steve just stares open-mouthed at him.

_Bucky was always a good actor,_ he thinks dreamily.

When he runs out of comments to read he switches to news reports. He starts searching for old documents that could hold a clue as to the whereabouts of James Buchanan Barnes between the years of 1945 and 2014, when James Smith first appeared.

“Thank God,” Sam says when he invites himself over one morning after their morning run. “Something other than that damn video. How many views does it have on it now?”

Steve doesn’t even look up from where he’s skimming a police report about a soldier rising from the grave in the fifties. “1.2 million.”

“Okay, so that’s, what, five or six views from people who aren’t you?”

Steve glares at him from over the top of the report.

“Chill, man, chill. I’m just glad you’ve finally given up your conspiracy theory.”

“I haven’t given up. It’s _Bucky,_ Sam. I know it is.”

“Right. And he’s been… where, exactly? For the last seventy years?”

“I’m working on that.” He indicates the police report.

“Oh my God. You _are_ a conspiracy theorist. Jesus I am_ so_ glad you’re not on Twitter.”

Steve squints at him. “What’s a Twitter?”

“Oh no,” Sam says.

* * *

Twitter, it turns out, is like the YouTube comments but at three times the speed and one hundred times the magnitude. It takes him two and a half days just to make an account.

“Why is Captain America taken?” he asks no one in particular.

“You’re taken?” Nat asks, scrutinising a stitch she had just made in what was either a knitted baby’s sock or a holster for a very small gun. “You should have told me, I would have sent flowers.”

Steve scoffs, and tries Captain underscore America instead. Nat carefully adds another stitch. Two minutes later Steve has to slam the laptop shut in disgust. “How can all the Captain America names be taken? There’s only one of me!”

Nat deigns to raise her eyes from whatever constitutes arts n crafts for an assassin. Steve very quickly remembers that she has two pointy objects in her hands.

“You know what,” he says, “I’ll just ask Friday for help.”

* * *

The sheer volume of tweets is astonishing.

Buchanan Bones says: “_Does James Smith really look like Bucky Barnes? If so I would have tapped Bucky in a heartbeat”_

_Me too,_ Steve thinks, and moves on.

\----

Sergeant Yes says: “_If I was Cap I would be seriously considering #reincarnation rn… #BarnesSmith”_

He hits the little love heart on the bottom of that tweet.

\----

Someone with a name made entirely of emojis says: “_I made a list of every movie/show @JamesSmith4RL has ever been in with download links for all u thirsty sluzzus https://bit.ly/36cKsA9.”_

Beneath this tweet people have responded with various _Thank you_s and _OMG You’re the BEST_ and quite a few renditions of what appears to be all the letters of the alphabet smooshed together. He adds another _Thank you_ to the list, and opens the link.

* * *

Tony turns up within the hour. “Why,” he says, “are the news channels reporting that you believe in reincarnation?”

“They also report car chases and climate deniers,” Steve says absentmindedly, transfixed by an episode of something called _Our Life_ in which an armless James Smith is playing a retired war vet falling tragically in love with the lead’s sister.

“Friday, did you give Captain America a Twitter account?”

“Yes, boss. He’s already learned how to comment and retweet.”

“Yes I _know,_ because you also validated him as the actual Captain America and now everyone thinks that the real Cap is obsessed with Bucky Barnes reincarnation theories.”

“The real Cap _is_ obsessed with Bucky Barnes reincarnation theories,” Sam calls from the kitchen.

“That’s because Bucky Barnes has been reincarnated,” Steve says distractedly. James is telling Violet that he was going back to the front lines and would she wait for him. He gets to his knees and he looks so earnest that Steve actually feels tears welling when Violet steps back, shaking her head.

The heartbroken expression on James’s face makes Steve sniff. “You might not wait for me,” he says, “but I’ll be thinking of you every second I’m out there. And if I die… My last breath will be spent saying your name.”

“Ugh,” Tony and Sam say in unison.

Steve sniffs again. Tony looks at him. “Ugh,” he says again. “Never picked you for soap operas, Cap.”

Steve rewinds to rewatch the scene.

“Friday, put Steve in media lockdown. No tweeting without the permission of someone born after the 80s.”

“Yes, boss.”

“And hire one of those millennial people. A PR person. Steve needs an internet babysitter.”

“Tony…”

“Don’t Tony me. You promised Nat you wouldn’t embarrass the team with this stuff and now I’ve got Fury breathing down my neck and reporters on the doorstep wanting to know if we’re about to hire some two-bit actor as an Avenger because our Captain keeps watching his movies.”

“Why do reporters care what movies I watch?”

“Dammit, Steve.” Sam plonks himself on the couch next to him. “James isn’t Bucky.” He holds his hand up. “No, don’t argue. He’s _not_ Bucky. And even if his, his _body_ is… He doesn’t remember you, man. He’s a different person. He has a life, and now some big famous superhero is stalking him and there’s reporters following him home and bugging him in the street.”

“What?! They can’t do that!”

“Don’t be an idiot. You know what the media is like. They’re like rabid dogs when they smell a story. They’re camped outside his place.”

“How come they know where he lives?”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Nat’s not the only one who can find where people live. And no, before you ask, you’re not allowed his address just because the media knows it.”

“If I could just ask him some questions…”

“Don’t even think about it. You’re on lockdown, remember.” Tony heads for the door, and yells over his shoulder, “And no more James Smith movies!”

Steve looks pleadingly at him but he’s already left. He turns to Sam with the same expression.

“No way, man. I’m not feeding your addiction.” He scrolls through the synopses on Steve’s laptop. “These look terrible, anyway. How many have you watched?”

“I’m up to _The Night Of Terror.”_

“Dr. Lisa Hesketh (played by award-nominee Julia Bloom) accidentally unleashes a spell while researching the living dead,” Sam reads. “Now her town is overrun and the only person who can help is being eaten alive by the curse (Jason Cassidy, played by _The Haunted Swamp_’s James Smith). As the clock counts down to a skeleton apocalypse—oh my God Steve this sounds truly awful—will she find the counter-spell in time to save herself and the man she once loved?”

Steve just looks at him.

Sam sighs. “Fine, fine. But only _one_ movie.”

(They watch _The Night Of Terror, The Night Of Terror 2,_ and _The Haunted Swamp_ before they run out of popcorn and Sam falls asleep).

* * *

“So, reincarnation—” he starts.

“Believable only,” Nat says without looking up. The sock/holster has turned into some kind of noodle. It could be used for a very small hockey stick.

He doesn’t try to argue.

* * *

Melissa the Millennial—“Just Mel, only my Aunt calls me Melissa”—is an absolute treasure. Even though the rest of the team insist on calling her Steve’s Babysitter. He thinks she’s wonderful. She navigates the labyrinthian internet with ease and manages to make even Steve’s fumblings look marginally useful.

“If you hit that, the whole world can see what you’ve written,” she says. “And once you’ve tweeted you can’t un-tweet. There’s no delete button fast enough to escape the internet.”

He ‘likes’ a picture of a dog. And then all he can see is pictures of dogs. “The algorithm,” Mel says knowingly.

“How do I go back to the stuff about Bucky?”

“Why don’t we work on your image, first?”

“My image?”

“You should probably tweet something un-Bucky related, so people don’t think you’re a Barnes-Smith conspiracy theorist.”

“I _am_ a Barnes-Smith conspiracy theorist.”

Mel doesn’t miss a beat. “Okay, but civilians don’t need to know that. Twitter is for fake Steve. The internet is for lying.”

“That can’t be true.”

“Lying,” she confirms. She pauses. “And memes.”

Steve puts his head in his hands. “What,” he says, “the hell. Is a meme.”

* * *

`**Steve:** `

`**Nat:** your babysitter is fired`

* * *

He gets added to the Avengers group chat. He didn’t realise there even was an Avengers group chat. He didn’t realise there were group chats.

`**Steve:** Hello?`

`**Steve:** 😊😊😊`

`**Tony:** who thought this was a good idea`

* * *

Despite being banned from publicly interacting with conspiracy theorists, the media continues to report on his obsession with James Smith.

`**Clint:** Channel 7 A-pals`

`**Steve:** Stop trying to make A-pals happen, it’s not going to happen`

`**Clint:** Who the HELL showed Steve mean girls?`

`**Tony:** Don’t look at me I’m not the one with a newfound obsession with bad movies`

`**Sam:** Okay but admit it, Zombeavers is a national treasure`

`**Clint:** Channel 7 A-pals`

`**Clint:** James Smith interview`

Steve waves his hand at the TV, which is the only way he’s figured to turn it on. Friday does the rest so he doesn’t have to learn the remote. James appears on screen, laughing at a guy that Steve vaguely recognises as some sort of late-night host.

“Exactly!” he’s saying. “Totally unprepared!” His left ankle is propped on his right knee and he’s leaning back, at ease. His hair is pulled up in a loose ponytail and his left sleeve is empty. Steve drinks in the sight of him. Bucky’s always been the glass of cold water on a hot day: something settles in Steve just by looking at him.

“So you had no goosebumps or anything when you talked to him? No twinges from a past life?” The host beckons for a life-size cardboard cut-out of Steve dressed as Captain America. “Nothing?” he says, propping the cut-out up to a round of cheers and cat-calls from the audience. Steve wants to tell them to shut up so he can hear James’s answer.

James grins and laughs as well. “No, nothing!” he says, and then—Steve’s heart leaps—“Well, I mean, of course I had goosebumps.”

“Bucky!” the host gasps. “It really is you!” The audience laughs again and James laughs with them.

“No, no, from meeting Captain America!”

“But you don’t even remember him coming out of the ice, surely he’s not even that big a deal to you?”

His phone beeps.

`**Sam:** This sounds scripted`

“Are you kidding?” James gestures at the cut-out. “Look at him! That’s goosebump material for anyone.”

The host turns the cut-out a bit so it’s facing him. The cardboard Steve is wearing his new stealth suit and staring straight ahead with a look of steely resolve. Steve has no memory of posing for a photo like that and wonders if the cut-out is fake.

“Damn,” the host is saying. “You’re right, I do have goosebumps.”

His phone beeps four times in quick succession. He steadfastly ignores it.

“Right! I couldn’t help myself.”

“James,” the host mock-chastises. “Did you flirt with Captain America?”

“I couldn’t help myself!” James repeats.

Steve’s lungs squeeze into tiny useless marbles, incapable of either inhaling or exhaling. If James likes guys, does that mean _Bucky…_

Steve has to turn his phone on silent to hear the rest of the interview.

The host turns to the camera. “Well, there you have it, folks. The reincarnation of Bucky Barnes has the hots for his once best friend.”

“No, no,” James tries to protest while the audience cheers. The host holds a hand out to stop him and keeps speaking. James falls back in his chair, laughing. The host begins to wrap up. The camera pans out while the host passes the Captain cut-out to a blushing James and the audience claps. Credits roll.

Steve checks his phone.

`**Clint:** HAS ANYONE CHECKED WHETHER STEVE IS ALIVE?`

He gets a call before he can read the rest of the messages. He doesn’t even need to check the caller ID.

“Hey, Mel.”

“Just when I thought we had this image thing under control…”

* * *

There are people with cameras outside Avengers Tower. They keep trying to ask members of the team how it feels to have a Captain who could be gay.

They’re sitting around a table on the common floor. Bruce is eating a mandarin at the pace of a snail. “I still don’t understand why a guy having a crush on Steve makes people think Steve likes guys,” he says. Steve doesn’t understand either, if he’s being honest.

“Like 50% of the team is queer,” Clint says from the window, staring down at the hordes of journalists waiting at the front door.

Steve flicks at a bit of cereal on the table. “Maybe I should just tell them I’m bi,” he says for the hundredth time. He’s sick of being cooped up indoors.

“Media doesn’t know what that means yet,” Nat says from the window next to Clint. She’s looking down at the throngs of people too, sipping tea and giving off the air of someone who’s planning a vast number of simultaneous deaths.

“No killing journalists,” Steve reminds her.

“It would look like an accident,” she says absently, tapping the rim of her cup against her lip.

Clint snaps a finger at the TV. “Come on, lets watch a movie.” Steve looks up. Clint cuts across him before he can say anything. “_Night of Terror_ is _not_ an option. We’re watching something Attenborough-y”

* * *

“If he was buried in the ice he might have unfroze, er, unfreezed? You know. Thanks to climate change.”

“Stop getting conspiracy ideas from Netflix documentaries.”

* * *

He knows he’s getting too caught up in research, but he can’t stop himself. His best friend is alive, and almost within reach. He stays up well into the night looking up just another theory, watching just another movie… He knows there’s an explanation. He _knows_ there is.

He’s not on his A-game anymore. He’s barely on his B-game. His eye bags are so big they have their own bags and he’s eating more two-minute meals than he did when he was in the army.

It’s not until they get a call out to a Hydra base that he finally realises he’s taken it too far. He’s just flung half a squadron into a wall when the final guard pulls off his mask and raises his hands. “Wait!” he says. “Wait, I have proof that James Smith is Sergeant Barnes!”

It stops Steve dead in his tracks.

“What did you just say?”

The guard puts his hand in his pocket and Steve takes a step forward to see, but as he gets close a sharp _crack_ echoes in the hall. Steve automatically ducks under his shield, cursing himself for not watching his back. He can’t feel any injuries anywhere, where the hell did the…

The guard falls backwards, a neat bullet hole square in the centre of his forehead.

He looks up to see Nat stalking down the hallway towards him, pistol in hand.

“I was just—” he says.

“Get back to the jet, Steve.”

“He said he knew—”

“I heard what he said.” She bends to rifle through the guard’s pockets, pulling a grenade out of the one he had been about to put his hand in.

Steve feels all the blood leave his face.

The team finishes the mission without him, and though there are no more close calls he sits at the back of the quinjet with his knees under his chin, not looking at anyone and awash in his own misery. After twenty minutes of uncomfortable silence Sam must draw the short straw because he comes to join him.

“Hey, Steve.”

“Hey.”

“You, uh… you doing okay back here?”

“I could have jeopardised the mission,” Steve tells the floor dully.

“Well, yeah. But more importantly you could have got yourself killed.”

Steve winces. Yeah, that too. Sam puts an arm around him and Steve gratefully leans into his side. He thinks of how he and Bucky used to cuddle after missions, too. For body warmth, mostly, though of course he always loved being close to Bucky in any capacity.

Even if James Smith really is Bucky… James doesn’t remember that time. He doesn’t remember the two of them in one sleeping bag with another bag on top, feet pressed together to try and entice some degree of warmth into their toes. James Smith doesn’t remember getting drunk in Brooklyn, or scrounging for coins under the bleachers at the field, trying to get enough to share a sticky ice cream in the sun.

James Smith might be James Barnes, but he isn’t _Bucky._

“I’ll stop with the conspiracy stuff,” he says quietly. The tension in the jet decreases noticeably. He leans harder against Sam. “Sorry for… you know.”

“We know Bucky’s important to you,” Sam says gently. “We’re not trying to take that away.”

“Yeah,” Steve whispers. “I know.”

They land a few hours later and Nat hands a box of files over to Agent Hill. Fury is waiting at the landing pad, too, and though he doesn’t say anything Steve’s insides curdle. The whole team knows how much he fucked up. Clint gives Fury another ream of papers. Steve hopes that at least the information from this mission will be enough to cover up his failure.

He goes to his floor and stacks all the police files up in a box, and he puts the box in the spare room. Then he collects the other paraphernalia: movies and merchandise and bits of ideas that he’s left tacked to the walls. He puts it all in a second box which he puts on top of the first box. He sets an empty fishbowl on top, then he leaves the room and closes the door behind him. He leans his forehead on the door.

“Bye, Buck,” he whispers.

Bucky doesn’t remember Steve, and he doesn’t remember _himself,_ but he’s alive. He’s not a soldier and he’s not in the middle of a war zone and it might not be the life Steve would have chosen for him but if Bucky can live in any capacity then Steve’s glad it’s at a time that he’s alive, too.

So he takes his forehead off the door and takes a step back. He can let Bucky be alive without being in that life. That’s what Steve had always envisioned for the two of them anyway. Bucky happy somewhere and Steve happy that he was happy. He’d always known that Bucky’s future wouldn’t involve him.

He sets James Smith loose from his heart.

His phone dings.

He ignores it.

His phone dings again.

And then three times in quick succession.

`**Mel:** turn on the news.`

`**Mel:** Steve?`

`**Mel:** turn on the news.`

`**Mel:** Do not go outside.`

`**Mel:** Are you seeing this?`

`**Steve:** What channel?`

`**Mel:** All of them.`

Steve waves his hand at the TV.

And then he has to sit down.

He puts his hand over his mouth.

“Oh, God,” he says. _“Bucky.”_


	3. Dead-eyed and Deadly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well there it is,” the TV host says. “Once again that was footage taken less than twenty minutes ago in Los Angeles, of an alleged robbery or... or even an attempted kidnapping of the actor James Smith."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> consistent chapter length WHOM

“That’s him,” the girl whispers.

“It’s not.”

“It is! He’s got a metal arm!”

“He doesn’t!”

“I saw it!”

The boy hushes her giggles. The camera peeps up over a display of cereal boxes. Two aisles over, James Smith is studying a bottle of ketchup. The camera quality is appalling and it’s not helped at all by the girl’s arm moving every time she giggles, but Steve knows the shape of James better than he knows himself.

“Say something to him!”

“No, you say something!

As they argue, a man in a dark hoodie approaches James from behind, and then leans in. From the bad angle it almost looks like an intimate moment, but then James staggers forward and the ketchup drops from his hands. Sauce splatters the floor and through the camera it looks like blood.

“What,” says the girl.

“Should we—”

Someone in a tidy red uniform—Steve assumes the store manager—rushes over. James is holding onto the aisle shelf, shaking his head. The stranger is still leaning over his back, and Steve thinks he might be saying something. When the store manager gets close the stranger shoves her back. She raises her fists in a classic yet fairly inexperienced pose and socks him in the jaw before he has a chance to react.

The stranger pulls out a gun.

“Shit!” the girl says, and the image is lost as the phone clatters to the ground.

There’s the sound of a shot.

And another.

And something red splashes over the screen.

“Well there it is,” the TV host says. “Once again that was footage taken less than twenty minutes ago in Los Angeles, of an alleged robbery or, or even an attempted kidnapping of the actor James Smith, most famous for his recent—”

Steve flicks the channel.

“We’ll be bringing you live updates as we hear more from this story, and now to our correspondent in Los Angeles, Joyce, is there any news from the—”

He flicks the channel. And flicks. And flicks.

“Sky News Tonight at the forefront of this story—”

“Still waiting for word from Smith—”

“No known family to extort or ask ransom, so we don’t know why he would be the target of—”

He finds another channel airing the video and brings his nose close to the TV, trying to decipher any other clue as to James’s wellbeing.

“We have to go help,” he says out loud.

“The police have it under control.”

“But they’re not as—”

“If they need us they’ll call, Steve.” Sam doesn’t try to turn the TV off, though he does push Steve backwards into a chair. He leans forward as far as he can. On the screen, James Smith staggers into the shelf as the stranger leans into him. Kissing his neck, maybe, or, or… whispering? None of this makes sense!

Tony and Clint are in the kitchen. Bruce is in the chair Nat usually takes. The one with the best line to the door. They had all come over as soon as the news had hit. The journalists at the front door are _rabid,_ practically begging for a comment from any one of the Avengers.

Steve is near numb to everything except his fear. The skin of his cheeks feels like it’s been drawn tight over his face. He’s wobbly, almost drunk. Bucky could be _gone._ Maybe gone into some unmarked van, and maybe… maybe _gone _gone. He tries not to think too hard about the ‘or’.

“Where’s Nat?” Sam asks the room at large.

“Going through the intel from the mission,” Bruce says. “She found some stuff about a Hydra super-soldier. Or some kind of machine, anyway.”

Steve waves him quiet. Anything unrelated to James Smith is Not His Problem right now.

“Any luck with facial recognition, Friday?”

“Nothing yet, Captain.”

“Any other cameras? Any car plates? Or, or a, a fingerprint? Something?”

“The police have uploaded extra footage onto their secure server.”

_How secure?_ He almost asks, but Friday beats him to the punch.

“Would you like it on the main screen?”

“Yes,” he says quickly. Tony and Clint come around the corner to watch. The TV flicks over to silent black-and-white film. A security camera from the shop, Steve guesses. People zoom past with trolleys and baskets as Friday fast-forwards to the required time. The footage slows down and James Smith walks onto the screen. His left arm is jammed into his pocket. He has a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes and his hair is tucked into a ponytail. His shoulders are hunched like he’s expecting to be called out any second. He picks something up just out of sight of the camera—the ketchup, Steve guesses—and a few seconds pass before the stranger creeps into the frame. From the high angle it’s easy to see that the stranger _is_ saying something, right into James’s ear.

The ketchup bottle drops.

The manager arrives.

The stranger pushes her back and she punches him in the jaw. The stranger pulls out a gun. All the while James is clutching the shelf, blinking dazedly.

The stranger aims the gun at the manager and James turns around. With absolutely no expression on his face he jabs the guy in the wrist, then chops a hand down on his elbow and sweeps back up to hit him square in the nose.

There’s no sound, but a flash from the gun indicates it’s gone off. A second flash follows.

James doesn’t even flinch. He just stares down at the spreading puddle of ketchup as it pools around his feet.

The manager scrabbles backwards. James blinks at her, still with that awful blank expression. Then he reaches down and picks up the gun. He looks at it for a long, long moment, then his fingers tighten around the grip and he lifts it and points it directly at the camera.

The footage goes dark.

“What the hell was that?” Tony asks in the silence.

“Play it again,” Steve croaks.

_He’s still alive,_ the desperate voice inside him whimpers.

They watch it again. He tries to decipher what the stranger is whispering but can’t quite make it out. He glances at Clint who shrugs as well. The footage isn’t clear enough for lip-reading, then.

James doesn’t fight anything like Bucky, he notes. Bucky had never had much call for close-combat, but when he did he had a certain style. Almost flamboyant in his moves. It put the enemy off, he used to say. James, on the other hand, fights with an economy of movement that suggests training specifically designed for close range. Every hit designed for maximum impact and minimal exertion. He fights like a machine. He fights… perfectly. And while it’s true that the fighting style is different to Bucky’s, it’s also true that the fighting style means Nat’s theory that James is from a modern military is false, too.

“The army doesn’t teach people to fight like that,” Steve tells the room.

“Maybe he was special forces,” Tony offers.

“Maybe,” Steve allows, though truly he doesn’t believe it. At least, he doesn’t believe James has been in the army _this_ century.

* * *

It takes more than 48 hours for Steve to get the whole story. And even then, Friday has to help with some of the police reports.

@JamesSmith4RL tweets in the early hours of the first day.

_Thanks to everyone sending their best wishes after the incident last night. Can confirm I am alive and well. Am working with the police and ask that u pls respect my privacy during this time._

After spending hours scrolling through James’s tweets of dumb birds and plants with beards, the new tweet is jarring.

Steve likes it anyway. He can’t help himself.

Nat calls him into one of the offices downstairs on the second day. “We need to talk about James,” she says before he’s even sat down. Director Fury and Agent Hill sit at the other end of the table, watching silently.

“I thought you wanted me to stop talking about James.”

“That’s precisely my point.” She throws a folder onto the table in front of him. He picks it up and flicks through. It’s an autopsy report. “The guy who attacked James was Hydra,” she says.

“What!?”

“When police showed up to detain him he was frothing at the mouth, and the autopsy reveals he took cyanide which had been embedded in one of his teeth. You know of any other organisation that embeds cyanide in their teeth?”

Steve’s about to list a couple, when he flicks to the next page. It’s a zoomed-in photo of the guy’s ankle, featuring a clumsy-looking flower beneath the jut of bone. He squints at it and realises… It’s not a flower, actually. It’s only been disguised to look like one. If you didn’t know what you were looking for you would miss it.

It’s a creature. Many-limbed and malevolent.

“Shit,” Steve whispers.

“No fingerprints,” Hill puts in. “Nothing else in his blood, and no facial recognition. Only Hydra can wipe their agents off the map that well.”

“What does Hydra want with some actor?”

Nat raises an eyebrow.

“You think they want him because of _me?”_

“The best friend of Captain America would be good leverage.”

“But I said I wasn’t going to follow that conspiracy stuff anymore!”

“That was like two days ago, Steve. Nobody knows that yet.”

“This doesn’t make any sense. Don’t they have better things to do?”

Nat sits in the chair opposite him and steeples her fingers. “We have a theory for that, too.”

Fury clicks his fingers and the lights go low. Friday projects a grainy picture onto the wall behind Fury’s head. Steve can just make out a shadow that looks vaguely human. In the photo, the shadow stands behind the corner of a building, looking straight at the camera. Another photo pops up. In this photo, the shadow crouches in the eaves of a church. The metal glint of a sniper is visible in its right hand.

“Who’s that?” he asks.

“That,” says Fury, “is the Fist of Hydra, codename Winter Soldier. And the only reason you’re still alive today is because Hydra hasn’t loosed him on you yet.”

Steve laughs, but he’s the only one who does. “Wait, you’re not joking?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Honestly, Steve thinks Fury has never looked like he was joking even one second of his life. He chooses not to answer the question. He turns back to the last photo and squints at the shadow. The Winter Soldier is so well hidden he could almost be mistaken for a part of the building he’s crouching on. He’s balanced forward on his toes, like he’s ready to pounce. Steve shivers.

Lethal. The Winter Soldier looks _lethal_.

“Who is he?”

“The Asset.”

“What, he’s got three code names but no real ones? What did we get from the Insight data drop?”

“A whole lot of nothing. He wasn’t even mentioned. The guy’s a ghost.”

“Well what _do_ we know about him?”

Hill stands up, and waves at Friday to bring up the lights. “Up until a few months ago, very little.” She hands Steve the thinnest file he’s ever seen. All told, there are three pieces of paper inside: another photo of the Winter Soldier’s face almost completely covered by a terrifying black mask, a double-sided piece of paper with his known aliases and hits, and a short examination of his abilities in the field which appears to be more guesswork than actual intel. Steve goes through each paper meticulously before what Hill had said sunk in.

“Wait, up until a few months ago? Why wasn’t I briefed the moment you—”

“No offense,” Nat cuts in, “but you haven’t exactly been gold-standard Captain lately.”

Steve winces. Right. “I haven’t been doing my job,” he says, blushing. “But I promise I’m 100% committed to this team. James Smith won’t get in the way of my duties again.”

“Glad to hear it,” Fury says with the kind of inflection that could be heartfelt but could also be disbelieving. Steve winces again.

“Either way,” says Hill, “we think Smith is connected.”

“What? How?”

“The Winter Soldier has been appearing for the last few decades more or less twice a year.”

“How old is he?”

“Old enough that he should be dead already, but…” he shrugs. “Either a second Soldier took over from the first, or the original is enhanced somehow.”

“You think it’s the second thing.”

“He’s fast, he’s efficient, and he never misses. Enhancement is certainly the most likely explanation. But since Insight there hasn’t been a single mention of him.”

“You think he died when the helicarriers came down?”

“Something like that doesn’t die in a little crash,” Fury says.

As one of the guys who had been right in the middle of the crash, Steve objects very strongly to the use of the word ‘little’. But Fury’s still giving him the one-eyed glare so he wisely keeps his mouth shut.

“You think he’s tracking something?” he tries instead.

“Until two days ago we didn’t know what had happened,” Hill admits. “But the last mission turned up an interesting report.” She looks over at Nat, who picks up the story.

“I’m still deciphering most of it, but it looks like the Winter Soldier is…” she searches for the right word. “At large.”

“What do you mean _at large?”_

“He doesn’t appear to be taking orders from Hydra right now.”

“Well that’s… good, right?”

“Depends on what he’s been doing in the interim.”

“What _has_ he been doing in the interim?

“We’re working on that.”

After months of spending too much time thinking about the past, Steve finally feels the strategist side of his brain picking up.

“So Hydra’s missing its best combatant,” he says slowly. “And after Insight failed they’re also missing any sort of weapon that can take us out.” He looks at the photo of the Winter Soldier in his mask. The Winter Soldier stares back, dead-eyed and deadly. “So they need something else to use against the Avengers.”

They all watch him put the dots together.

“They want James so they’ve got leverage on us,” he sighs.

Fury’s eye never blinks. “Got it in one,” he says.


	4. Idiot Backup Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He looks at them all in turn. “You ready to kick some Nazi ass?” 
> 
> Tony sighs again and lifts his head off the table. “Coffee first,” he says. “Then Nazi ass.”

The first step is to try and take some of the pressure off James. He does this by telling Mel he’s doubling her wage and then inviting her to live in the Avengers Compound.

“Technically I’m the one who’s doubling her wage,” Tony says when Steve tells the team of the situation, and his plan.

Bruce waves at him to shut up. “What’s Mel going to do?”

“Turn James-Smith-adorer-Steve into Captain-America-Steve,” Clint says wisely.

Nat snorts. “You mean make sure Steve’s tweeting about politics instead of celebrity goss.”

“Bingo.”

“What’s that supposed to do?”

Steve gestures at the window as though to encompass the rest of the city. “If Hydra thinks I’m not interested in James anymore, then what’s the point of trying to get to him? While we’re doing that we’re also going to be running Plan B.”

“Which is?”

“We hit every Hydra base we know. Hard. We don’t give them any room to breathe.”

“Not that I don’t think this will work,” Tony says, “but do we have a Plan C?”

“We have a Plan C,” Steve replies cagily.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like Plan C?”

“Plan C is to get the message out that we want the Winter Soldier on our side.”

Tony puts his head on the table. “Why,” he asks the polished wood. “Why do we always have idiot backup plans?”

“The Winter Soldier could be a real asset,” Nat points out. “Wanda knows a bit of Hydra’s internal structure. Together she and Winter could be of real value. And…” she doesn’t look at Steve, but he averts his eyes anyway, “if we can get Winter, we have a very heavy deterrent to stop Hydra from going after James.”

Tony rubs his face with both hands. “The Winter Soldier has a kill tally higher than my bedpost tally,” he groans.

“If he’s not with us, he could end up working with Hydra again.”

“Oh sure, and the only way to make sure that doesn’t happen is to invite the murder-bot into my home.”

_“Our_ home,” Steve corrects. “We’re all playing with fire here, Tony. Which is why we all have to agree to the plans.”

“I would let Winter Soldier rail me,” Clint says a little dreamily, holding up the black and white photo. “Do you reckon he can handle his gun as well as he handles his—?”

“Yes or no, Clint,” Steve interrupts.

“I thought that was a pretty obvious yes.”

Steve looks at Tony, who sighs deeply and puts his head back on the table. “Fine,” he says. “But murder-bot is sleeping in your room.”

The rest of the team agrees one by one, and Nat nods grimly. “I’ll spread the word to my contacts underground,” she says, and no one bothers to ask what kind of contacts she has in the underground. Not the good kinds, is the most likely answer.

“What do we have to do?” Sam asks.

Steve puts three piles of paper on the table. He pushes one pile towards Tony and one towards Clint. The other he keeps in front of himself.

“There are three active Hydra bases that we know about,” he says. “We’re going to split into teams and take them all out at the same time.” He looks at Bruce. “Sorry, pal, but we’re going to need a little green for this plan.”

Bruce smiles tightly. “That’s what I’m here for, right?”

“We’ll get you back in the lab as quick as possible,” Steve promises. “Wanda and Vision are flying in to join us, and Spiderman is on board too. We’re trying to reach Thor, though we shouldn’t bet on him showing up. But Lieutenant Rhodes says he’ll come help out. Ant-Man is on standby.” He looks at them all in turn. “You ready to kick some Nazi ass?”

Tony sighs again and lifts his head off the table. “Coffee first,” he says. “Then Nazi ass.”

They get to work.

* * *

The first three bases aren’t expecting them at all. From the successful missions they get enough intel to find two more bases before Hydra begins covering its tracks. It feels good. It feels like he’s protecting Bucky, somehow, even though James wouldn’t know anything about what they’re doing.

Between kicking Hydra ass every waking moment of the day and approving Mel’s painfully bland tweets in whatever time he has left, there’s not a single second left for Steve to think about Bucky or James. In fact there’s not a single second left for Steve to think about anything that isn’t mission related. From what he can gather from snippets of radio and TV, the paparazzi around James doubled after his takedown of what the police are calling a suspected robber. But there hasn’t been a single other attack, or anything even close to it.

“He’s got a bodyguard now,” Tony tells Steve one afternoon, throwing himself into a chair and stretching his legs onto the chair opposite with a groan. They had spent the last three days doing a reccy of a potential Hydra stronghold in Alaska that had turned out to be abandoned.

“He shouldn’t have to—”

“I know, I know. I already rang the agency and paid the guy’s wages for the next six months.”

Steve relaxes a little. He knows James is practically famous these days, but he’s still a fairly C-grade actor, and fame doesn’t necessarily pay bills.

“Thanks, Tony.”

“Don’t mention it. Actually, wait. Do mention it. In fact, I will allow you to not mention it on the proviso that you make like Bueller and take a day off.”

“Huh?”

“Hydra’s down, James is safe, and you’re running yourself into the ground with this stuff. You need a break before you burn out.”

“I’m not burnt out.”

“You,” Tony says, “are currently drinking Wanda’s vegemite water.”

Steve looks at the jug in his hand. “So I am,” he muses. He takes another sip. It tastes like concentrated soup stock. He takes another sip. Tony gingerly removes the jug from his hand and replaces it with a bottle of Gatorade.

“One day off,” he pleads. “Before you go completely bonkers and end up accidentally eating one of Bruce’s leaf things.

“I like dolmades!”

“Friday, put Steve on lockdown until he starts talking sense.”

“I do like them!”

“Oh God, Friday, there’s nothing more we can do for him.”

Clint pops his head around the corner of the kitchen. “Nothing more we can do for who?”

“Captain Rogers has died,” Tony informs him solemnly.

“They taste like little juicy rice balls,” Steve defends.

Tony puts his hand over Steve’s eyes and shuts them. “Sometimes I can still hear his voice,” he says.

“Fine, stop it, stop it, I’ll take the day off, Jesus.”

Clint comes over and puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “He was a noble warrior,” he tells Tony. “May he rest in peace.”

Steve leaves the room as they discuss the flower arrangements for his coffin.

In his own quarters he throws himself on the couch and waves his hand at the TV.

“A movie, Captain?” Friday offers.

“Sure,” Steve says. “What’s next on the list?”

Friday dims the lights and begins to play something about cheerleaders in high school. Steve almost immediately zones out. He sips his Gatorade and despite his very best efforts he can’t stop his mind from wandering to thoughts of Bucky. Or James, he supposes. The longer he goes without seeing James the harder it is to distinguish the two in his head. Though it should be easy, really.

James is an actor, and a stranger to boot. His personality, his likes, his dislikes… everything about him is a mystery.

Bucky, though. Bucky is his best friend. Was. There’s nothing about Bucky that Steve doesn’t know. Bucky always had a joke up his sleeve, and usually a cigarette as well. He was as quick to flirt as he was to fight, and often managed both at the same time.

“M’lady,” he had once told the girl from down the road. Rosie, or Roselle, or something. He had tipped his hat to her right there in the middle of a street brawl.

“I got a kiss for that,” he had told Steve the next night, curled up under the covers of the bed they shared in winter. His arm had been around Steve’s waist as he said it. His nose had been tucked against the back of Steve’s shoulder. Their legs fit together like jigsaws.

“What’s kissing like?” Steve had asked. So naïve. Even now he grimaces at the memory. But Bucky had huffed a laugh into the skin of his back and tightened his arm and said, “You’ll find out, Stevie.”

Steve’s heart gives a familiar squeeze, like it’s a fist tightening beneath his ribs.

If only he’d been brave enough to spin in Bucky’s arms. To turn around and face him and say, “I’d like to find out now,” and press his lips to Bucky’s. If only he’d been brave enough to take Bucky’s face in his hands and tell him all the things he felt, and the ways he wanted to hold Bucky, the ways he loved him.

“Be aggressive,” the cheerleader on the screen says. “Be-e aggressive.”

“You be aggressive,” he tells her mulishly. She flounces off to a car to go to some event Steve doesn’t care about. He looks down his body at the unfortunate repercussions of imagining kissing Bucky. “You can stop being aggressive,” he tells his stiffy.

It ignores him.

He glares at it, muttering to himself. “Have a day off, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.”

He gives up on the movie entirely and goes to have a nice cold shower to erase three days of dirt and three minutes of wishful thinking.

He forces himself to go over some intel before bed. A few printouts and some papers that look like field reports. There’s a box that had come directly from a base, and some files left by Nat. As he rifles through them it becomes even clearer that Hydra has only two missions: to acquire the Winter Soldier, and to acquire James Smith. The same teams must be attempting both extractions, because there seems to be very little effort being put in to separate the intel. Sometimes Smith is mentioned in the same report as the Soldier. Madness.

Steve picks out a few recent reports that mention the Winter Soldier specifically. He makes notes in the margins. Though the terms are overly technical, it sounds as though the Soldier doesn’t want to be taken. At least by Hydra.

“Good for us,” he murmurs. Though if the Soldier wants to join the Avengers there hadn’t been any chatter of it through Nat’s contacts, either.

He sighs and rubs his forehead and thinks longingly of bed.

_One more report,_ he promises himself. _One more, and then sleep. _

A photocopy of an original document is on the top of the pile. Underneath it is the decoded and translated version, with Nat’s signature and a few notes in the margin in her handwriting. He pulls the translation towards him.

_0000 0843 Secure complex. No clear lines._

_0843 Emergence. No clear lines_

_0843 0907 Mobile. Vehicle: motorbike. See attached. No clear lines._

_0907 0940 Shopping complex. No clear lines._

Steve rifles through the rest of the translation. It’s all the same stuff. He bites his lip and reads a few more pages. _Surveillance notes,_ he writes at the start of the document. He can’t think of anything else they could be.

He flicks to the attached images and his heart sinks. They’re photos of James. James on the street, hiding his face from paparazzi. James in line at a grocery store. James rifling for a set of keys outside a nondescript brownstone. There’s also a photo of James astride a huge black motorbike, apparently just in the process of either mounting or dismounting. His helmet is hanging over one of the handlebars and his jeans are _tight _around his ass and thighs. The angle is practically pornographic. Steve blushes and hurriedly puts the photo away, then shakes himself and takes it back out. He’s doing _intelligence collection._ He isn’t being intentionally creepy.

Except, well. It’s hard to feel that way with a photo of James looking like _that._

He puts the photo in with the others and closes the file.

Okay, no reports tonight, then.

_Bed,_ he thinks.

He’s about to get up when he notices something shiny at the bottom of the box. He pulls it out. It’s a little red USB, with _‘Soldier’_ written on the side in black texta. He rummages through the rest of the box but there are no attached reports, or anything in Nat’s handwriting to indicate that she had seen the USB at all.

He opens his laptop, and plugs it in.

A number of file folders open. His options are: _01 Training, 02 Conditioning, 03 Testing, 04 Handling, 05 Maintenance,_ or _06 Wipes_

He quickly flicks through each folder, noting that a vast majority of the files look corrupted. Hydra must have been attempting to clean their intelligence out.

“You getting this, Fri?”

“Yes, Captain. Attempting to reconstruct the data now. I’ll put anything salvageable in a separate folder.” A new folder appears on screen and Steve clicks it. There are only two available videos. There’s a pause and then, “Sir, I think it would be best if you turned this drive over to Agent Romanov.”

Steve clicks on the first available video. _0309 Testing: Voltage._ “Why’s that?” he asks absently, and then, oh, oh God.

The video has no sound, but it doesn’t need sound.

“The videos appear to contain sensitive material,” Friday is saying, but it’s too late, it’s too late. He’s seen.

The footage is from a camera at head-height, directly facing the Winter Soldier, with a clock counter in one corner. The Soldier is clad from nose to toe in some kind of skin-tight grey wrapping, so the only thing visible are his eyes and the lank hair that falls freely in front of them. He’s staring unblinkingly ahead. There’s no one else in the frame and the Soldier is shaking hard. Ropes extend away from him in all directions. It’s only when the Soldier falls to his knees that Steve realises they’re not actually ropes, they’re cables. And they’re not holding the Soldier in place at all. The grey wrap is metallic, he realises. It’s _electrified._ And the clock counter in the corner isn’t a clock, it’s a, holy _shit,_ it’s a _voltage_ meter.

The Winter Soldier keeps staring dead ahead even after he falls to his knees. The counter ticks up. 700. 850. 1000. He’s doing this to himself. Except that’s not possible. They must be forcing him to, somehow. There’s, there’s no other explanation, right? Otherwise surely he’d be ripping the cables off him and tearing the wrap apart.

The video statics into nothing.

“Friday? Where’s the rest of it?”

“Working on it, Captain.”

He gets five more seconds near to the end of the video. The Soldier has his head thrown back and the wrap is concave over the shape of his nose and mouth before it billows out, showing a huge bubble where it’s obvious he’s screaming.

2250, the counter reads.

_What._

Like a man possessed, he finds himself clicking on the second video. _0542 Maintenance: 42._ The camera is in the same place, though this time the Soldier is lying flat on a raised table, and three people in white coats huddle around his far side. He’s wearing black combat pants and the same mask as the photos Fury had shown Steve weeks ago. His right arm is visible from this angle, his fingers drumming on the table as though he’s… bored?

All of a sudden a shower of sparks appears from the far side, underneath the hands of the three strangers. The Soldier turns his face to the side to avoid the sparks, so he’s staring directly into the camera. The mask covers the lower half of his face but his eyes, Jesus, his eyes go right through Steve’s _soul._

There’s another flash of sparks and the muscles of his right arm go tight. His bicep bulges and his fingers flex, lifting up briefly before settling back on the table. The other three barely even look over, absorbed as they are in… whatever they’re doing.

The sparks start coming again and the Soldier strains against nothing, his head lifting backwards and his bare feet drumming the base of the table. Whatever they’re doing on his other side _hurts,_ Steve realises. But the video isn’t showing the procedure, it’s showing the Soldier’s reaction to it.

No matter how he shudders and jerks on the table, his left arm never seems to move. He’s letting them do this, too. Whatever _this_ is.

The video goes for forty-five minutes, and though Friday only manages to get snippets of it, the setting never changes. Three strangers in lab coats hunched over the Soldier’s left arm, doing something awful that Steve can’t for the life of him figure out. Why are there _sparks?_

“Friday, is Agent Romanov awake?”

“Yes, Captain. Calling her now.”

There’s a pause and then, “Steve?”

“Nat. I’ve got… There’s something you need to see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone reading this fic and those of you who are leaving me such lovely comments and kudos!! If you have tumblr you can reblog this fic [here!](https://omgbubblesomg.tumblr.com/post/188763104291/acting-up)


	5. It'll Be Fun, They Said

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Take a day off,” he mumbles to himself, heading for the shower. “Yeah, right.”

“What happened to your day off?” Tony grumbles an hour later. They’re sitting around the conference table looking at snapshots from the Hydra videos. Friday has managed to unscramble a few more seconds here and there, but they weren’t showing the actual footage to anyone else, any more than completely necessary.

“I wouldn’t have found the USB if I didn’t get that day off,” he points out.

Hill cuts over whatever Tony’s about to say back. “As you can see this changes our approach somewhat,” she says. “If Winter was held against his will, which is what it looks like, it’s unlikely that he’ll be interested in rejoining Hydra, or any other faction.”

“Yay!” Clint says, putting his hands in the air.

“Which means he might decide to work solo to eliminate as many from both sides as possible.”

“Boo…” Clint says quietly, lowering his hands.

Steve leans forward. “Is that really a likely option?”

Hill eyes him. “We don’t know if he was loyal to Hydra originally, or if he’s been under their control since the beginning. But either way, yes, it’s completely within reason to believe that a highly trained, highly traumatised, and highly lethal soldier could choose to eliminate as many threats against him as possible.”

“Big yikes,” Tony says into his coffee.

Hill glares at him. “He’s a threat to everyone at this table,” she says icily.

“Bigger yikes,” Tony whispers when she looks away.

“He’s been free for years now,” Steve points out. “And he hasn’t tried to take on any of us.”

“That might change if he knows that both Hydra and the Avengers want him on-side.”

He breathes in. _Great._

“Okay, team.” They look at him with raised eyebrows and, wow, has it really been that long since he gave them a pep talk? “Listen, the last few weeks have been rough, and before that I wasn’t around much, but if what Agent Hill says is true then from now on we need to keep a closer eye on our six. No missions without backup. No Soldier assignments unless they come through Hill or me first.” He looks at each of them in turn. “If the Soldier turns up while you’re in the field, no one is to engage. You get out, and you get help.” He pauses. “Having said that… If he does show up, and you’re forced to engage, we’re not going to be the first ones to shoot. He’s dangerous, but until proven otherwise he’s a P. O. W. first and a threat second. Hill?”

“Agreed.”

He looks back at the team, and something settles in his stomach to see them nodding back at him. These are his guys. His _team._

“That’s all for now, then,” Hill says. “Dismissed.”

Steve waits until the rest of the team has filed out before turning back to Hill.

“You know what’s going to happen if Hydra gets to the Soldier first,” Hill says evenly.

Of course he knows. “He’ll take James.” He’s seen the reports of what this guy can do.

Hill nods carefully. “And you still want to prioritise keeping him alive?”

“If it’s possible, we have to try.” He gestures at the image of the Soldier on the screen. It’s a still from a video Friday hadn’t managed to load more than a second of, though a second was more than enough. It’s a close up of the Soldier’s abdomen while bullets are removed from his belly. From the movement in even that second of video it had been clear that the Soldier had been awake during the procedure. “He might need us more than we need him,” he points out. “And until we know for sure that he’s a danger, we have to act under the assumption that he can be helped.”

“As long as you’re sure, Captain.” She gets to her feet. “Now I think it’s about time you took the rest of your day off.”

He doesn’t argue.

When he gets back to his rooms he doesn’t bother watching a movie or reading any more reports. After what he’s seen today he’s going to have nightmares no matter what he does, so there’s really no point waiting. He strips into a pair of boxers that won’t get tangled if he starts kicking in the night, and then throws himself onto the bed. After days in shitty undercover motels, it feels like it’s hugging him. “Missed you,” he tells it, and then drifts right off to sleep, braced for the nightmare.

Except it’s not a nightmare that’s waiting for him.

It’s _Bucky._

“Hey, Stevie,” Bucky says. “You got a match?”

They’re in Italy. They’re waiting for the all-clear to move in on a target. They’re lying in a small ditch, nothing between them and the stars. Steve wishes it was colder because in the warmth their bodies don’t even meet under the flimsy blanket.

“No smokes while I’m sleeping,” he mumbles, keeping his eyes closed because he’s trying to get just a few hours, dammit. There’s a march tomorrow. They have to be up early.

“Ste-_eve,”_ Bucky whines, rolling into him to poke him under the ribs.

Steve can’t help but laugh. He catches Bucky’s fingers in his own and holds them in between their bodies where they can’t be used against him. Bucky uses his elbows instead, niggling and laughing as well. When Steve opens his eyes Bucky is right there, grinning at him under the starlight. He’s… God, he’s beautiful.

Steve blinks, and over Bucky’s shoulder he sees a shadow lying like a mirror, almost invisible against the dark ground.

“Bucky,” Steve gasps, and pulls him forward, away from the shadow. But when he looks again the shadow is gone.

“Steve?” Bucky asks. “What’s wrong?” He’s handing Steve an orange. They’re at the markets near Brooklyn and the weather has been so good for so long that everyone is up to their elbows in oranges. All Steve eats is oranges. They’re so cheap his mother buys them by the basket. He takes the fruit from Bucky and bites into the bitter rind, ripping it off with his teeth to get to the sweetness inside.

“Nothing,” he says, mouth dripping. Bucky’s eyes stray to his lips, and Steve licks them self-consciously. Bucky’s eyes go back up.

“Steve,” Bucky says, low. He reaches for Steve’s face but Steve glances to the side because there’s a shadow at Bucky’s elbow; a shadow with a knife.

“Watch out!” he yells, and he tries to put his useless little body between Bucky and the shadow but when he turns to look there isn’t any shadow, and they’re not at the markets, they’re in the snow, and Bucky is bundled up against the chill and there’s little snowflakes in his eyebrows and he says something about Coney Island and Steve’s about to make a joke but the shadow is at Bucky’s back, knife poised, and he flings his shield at it but it’s gone and they’re in Mezzano, staggering to freedom and the shadow is behind Bucky again and no matter which way he spins the shadow is always there, waiting for Bucky’s back to be turned. They’re in Poland, they’re in Brooklyn, they’re fighting Nazis in a burned-out city in a country Steve can no longer remember. And every time the shadow is waiting.

“You can’t have him,” Steve snarls, and Bucky turns to him, sniper loose in his left hand, and one side of his mouth quirks up and he says, “Can’t have who?” and Steve pushes him backwards into the safety of a doorway alcove, and he follows Bucky right after and presses against him chest to toe, so there’s no space between them, so there’s no room for any shadows, and Bucky goes, “Oh,” and they’re kissing. And then they’re not against a door, they’re against a mattress, and the mattress is on the creakiest frame Steve’s ever heard and they’re not standing up, they’re lying down, and Bucky is between his legs and Steve is blanketing him and they’re still kissing, and the sounds Bucky makes when their lips meet are… they’re… oh, they’re _sin_.

He presses down against Bucky’s hips and they rise to meet him. He says Bucky’s name. He says it again.

“You know I’m not _really_ him,” Bucky says, and when Steve opens his eyes it’s James beneath him. Except Bucky’s here too, like he’s split in two just for Steve. And the dream is angled and foggy like all dreams and he kisses James and tangles his hand in James’s hair and then he kisses Bucky and puts his other hand in Bucky’s blue pea coat.

The shadow is here, too. The Winter Soldier stares at them bleakly and Steve covers James and Bucky with his body on instinct, keeping himself between them and the threat. The Soldier is barely corporeal but he feels solid enough when he blankets Steve as well, the line of his body following the line of Steve’s, so they almost feel like they’re moving as one. The mask scratches the back of Steve’s neck. His hands bracket Steve’s hips, and there’s an aborted thrill of awareness where he realises that this has to be the _weirdest_ sex dream he’s ever had.

And then it doesn’t matter because James kisses him again, and then Bucky, and the Soldier leans over his shoulder to watch, and Steve tries to spread his legs wide enough to fit them all between, and Bucky says, “Greedy,” and James says, “Kinky,” and they laugh and reach up for him just as he reaches for them.

His hand closes around someone’s cock. Both of them, maybe. This dream already makes no sense. Their clothes have disappeared. He’s never touched anyone except himself, but it doesn’t feel like his own cock. It’s rock-hard, straining to meet him. James and Bucky both arch, their faces going slack in pleasure as he thumbs at it gently, rubs circles right beneath the head like he likes to do to himself.

Bucky blinks, rolls. “Stevie, I—” he says. He looks confused by his own pleasure. Which isn’t right. In dreams he’s never confused. Steve never has to tell him how he feels and he never gets a chance to get the wrong response because in his dreams Bucky always wants him back.

“Steve,” James says as well, sounding just like Bucky but also different. His left hand comes up and turns metal halfway to Steve’s face, so that when it touches him it’s cool, but still human. It’s inexorable as it curls behind his neck, draws him closer. James kisses him like Steve has always imagined Bucky would kiss him. Hard, at first. Then so, so soft. James’s tongue is in his mouth and then Bucky’s tongue is there, too, taking over. It’s wet and messy and _loud,_ the only point of silence is the place right behind Steve, where the Soldier watches wordlessly. There’s pressure against the back of his hip which could be a gun, or a knife. The thrill of a hidden threat. But Steve knows instinctively that that isn’t it at all.

The Soldier ruts against him from behind, shoving Steve’s hips into the hips beneath him. The cock in his hand jerks, but he’s not sure whose it is anymore. He drums his fingers against it. Someone’s hand sneaks between his open thighs, cupping his balls where they’re exposed from the wide spread of his legs. The hand rolls carefully, then closes and pulls, gently tugging Steve’s sack away from his body so he stutters down, his muscles flexing and his legs trying to close despite the weight of two bodies between them.

“I—” he says, with no direction to his sentence at all. “You—” The hand eases and then squeezes gently, rolling. He has to clench his eyes shut against the force of pleasure that brings, so he misses the moment that James hums and licks his chest, sucking a nipple into his mouth. The metal hand at the back of his neck tightens to stop him arching away when James bites down.

He thrusts his tongue into someone’s mouth—Bucky’s—licks in deep, pulls back to thrust again. Bucky’s groaning. So is James. They’re the same person. They’re not. The Soldier is holding his waist and shoulder, like a bizarre reverse-dance position. They move again, again. He kisses them. He gets handfuls of them. The Soldier watches, occasionally rutting forward to send Steve’s body into theirs. The dream makes less and less sense the longer it gets. They’re naked. They’re not. He’s on them, under them. He wants more but he’s held frustratingly short by both a lack of experience and imagination. He wants, he wants.

And there’s a hand on his cock and a mouth on his neck and a finger between the cheeks of his ass and he stutters forwards into their hands then backwards into the Soldier’s crotch and he groans and wakes with a pillow beneath his hips and a name behind his lips and when he opens his mouth he’s not sure which name he was about to say.

Already so close and still half asleep he presses into the pillow then reaches down and strokes himself three, four, five times, and he comes into his own palm.

Then he gets the dubious pleasure of lying in his cooling sweat with his sticky hand, feeling guilty and confused and pissed off all at the same time.

“Take a day off,” he mumbles to himself, heading for the shower. “Yeah, right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So usually when I finish a fic I leave a fic rec in the final author’s notes, but since this fic is so long I might try and do one in every chapter. (This is my solution to the fact that ao3 doesn’t have a built-in ‘Read More’ button.) Okay so today’s recommendation is [Project Kraken](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10944618/chapters/24354222) by Unforth, which features tentacley!Steve and WS!Bucky, and was one of the first fics that taught me that just because you have a slow burn doesn’t mean you can’t make it smutty in dreams :K huhuhuhu. Enjoy! If you have another rec that you think readers might enjoy, feel free to comment it here or send it to me on [tumblr](omgbubblesomg.tumblr.com) if u want to be anon.


	6. Black Coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sorry,” he’s saying before he even gets himself perpendicular again. “Sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was—”  
“You!” James says.  
Steve’s heart exits via his shoelaces. “You,” he squeaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I’m trying to get Steve to do something but he is very annoying and resists all attempts at subtle direction. How inconveniently stubborn of him. I’m the Star Spangled Writer with a Fighter.

All the Hydra intel points to James being completely off their radar. That, combined with Mel’s work at making Steve the most boring person on the planet, results in the numbers of paparazzi outside the compound gates dwindling down until there’s no one there at all.

Steve immediately announces that he’s going on a walk.

“Wear the invisibility hat,” Tony calls after him.

Steve jams a cap over his head and puts his darkest glasses on. Clint and Tony both gasp and look around.

“He’s gone!”

“Where is he?”

“Friday, have you seen Captain Rogers?”

“I swear he was here a moment ago, but now there’s only this stranger in a cap.”

“Go to Hell,” Steve mutters, pulling the cap lower.

“Bring coffee on your way back,” is the only response he gets.

He gets into the open air and immediately he wants nothing more than to start running, but he figures that would be a dead giveaway for any remaining journalists so he settles for a brisk walk. With no clear destination and no set return time his mind wanders. First to Hydra and then, inevitably, to Bucky. He’s spent years cradling the ripped-heart feeling of loss, and now with James seemingly on every news station and at the centre of every mission plan it’s impossible to not revive the pain.

Except he’s sticking with the promise he made himself. He’s not going to interfere in James’s life. If Bucky is happy with a different name and a different career… If Bucky is happy without _Steve…_ then Steve can be happy, too. The important thing is that Bucky is alive.

His phone buzzes in his back pocket.

`**Nat:** Chai latte`

`**Steve:** Get your own damn coffee`

`**Nat:** Steve.`

Somehow she’s still menacing even over text.

`**Steve:** sorry, sorry. Chai latte coming up.`

He thumbs the screen for a bit before adding,

`**Steve:** What are you up to today?`

`**Nat:** Going through Soldier vids`

`**Steve:** Fri got more? Hell`

`**Nat:** Mmh`

`**Nat:** Can you grow new teeth, too?`

`**Nat:** Askin for a friend`

`**Steve:** Never had the opportunity to find out`

`**Nat:** Mmh`

`**Steve:** This is not permission to pull my teeth out`

`**Steve:** Nat`

`**Steve:** Nat, reply`

`**Steve:** No teeth pulling, Nat`

` **Nat:** `

He’s busy looking at his phone, not really paying attention to where his feet land, right up until the next step lands on someone else’s foot and only supersoldier reflexes stop him from barrelling straight into them and then into the ground.

“Sorry,” he’s saying before he even gets himself perpendicular again. “Sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was—”

“You!” James says.

Steve’s heart exits via his shoelaces. “You,” he squeaks.

James goes a brilliant shade of magenta, a flush that Steve very definitely hasn’t been fantasising about almost nightly. Then James looks to either side and says, “Shit, we can’t be seen together.”

“You’re supposed to be in California,” Steve points out, a little dazedly.

“I finished filming last week, which, wait, don’t you work with, like, super-spies and AIs and computers who know all that?”

“They won’t give me any information on your whereabouts,” Steve says honestly.

James goes a little pale. “Oh, God, I really do have a superhero stalker.”

Steve opens his mouth to defend himself, but then winces. “Not anymore,” he amends.

“Excuse me,” someone says, trying to get around them. They’re standing in the middle of the footpath. Abruptly, Steve remembers that he’s trying to keep his own profile low, and by extension James’s. Almost without thinking he puts a hand in the small of James’s back and ushers him sideways, apologising to the lady and her two dogs without turning his head or showing his face.

“In here,” James whispers, and they fold into a doorway almost at the same time. Only when they’re on the inside of a tidy little diner does Steve pull his hand back like it’s been burned, trying at the same time to look like he never had a hand on James to begin with. James, for his part, doesn’t appear to have noticed.

On instinct, he takes the seat in the closest corner, where he can see the door. James sits opposite him, left hand jammed in his pocket. “Hell,” James says. “Coffee date with Captain America. And just when I got rid of the paps…”

“No one saw,” Steve assures him, then almost bites his tongue clean in half when the word “date” makes it through to his upstairs brain, then immediately to his downstairs brain. He coughs and squirms.

“This is the first time in weeks that I’ve been able to walk around without cameras flashing,” James says sadly. “I just wanted a coffee and some fresh air.”

Steve absorbs these facts with as blank a face as possible. It’s his fault James hasn’t been able to leave the house. “Well,” he says, “at least I can help with the first part.” He flags down a waitress and orders two coffees, speaking from over a menu as he does in the hopes that she’ll think of him as a rude customer instead of an Avenger in disguise. She pours straight from the pot and barely looks at them twice. James takes his coffee black, Steve notes, but he can’t really do much with the information. Bucky took his coffee black, too, but only because they never used to have money for cream or sugar.

His phone buzzes.

`**Nat:** Something’s up with Winter’s arm`

`**Nat:** The left one.`

Steve hurriedly types a reply.

`**Steve:** Maybe he’s got a tattoo or something that would identify him.`

The little bubbles pop up to show Nat’s typing but Steve puts the phone down before he sees the reply. He doesn’t want James to think he’s being rude.

James doesn’t even look like he cares. He sips his coffee and his eyes slip shut. “That’s the shit,” he sighs. Steve must flinch a little at the curse because James looks up and grins. “Don’t tell me the choirboy act isn’t an act,” he teases, and Steve unsuccessfully attempts to stop heat from rising up the back of his neck.

“We met at a kid’s show,” he defends.

“True.” James smirks at Steve sideways over the brim of his mug. “But if you think that’s bad you definitely don’t want to hear what I say in bed.”

Steve has to put his own coffee down before he spills it. He can feel the blush spreading over his cheeks and down his neck.

“Sorry,” James says, still smirking.

“No, you’re not.”

“No, I’m not. I can’t help myself.” There’s that sly grin again.

“Oh, for the love of… That’s what you said on that TV show, too.”

“Oh yeah, sorry about that, too.”

Steve’s getting better at telling when he’s lying. “No, you’re not,” he says again.

“You’re right, I’m not.” James grins at him. “What can I say, you’re a big celebrity and I’m a nobody. Rent was coming up and I needed my lucky break and hey,” he kicks Steve under the table. “You’re quite some break, buddy.”

Steve rolls his eyes, laughing, and realises quite out of the blue that he _likes_ James.

A rush of guilt swamps him. He’s not supposed to _like_ James. He takes a hasty sip and almost burns his tongue.

“Well,” he says, searching for another topic and hoping his silence hasn’t ruined the mood. “I hope you at least got a good movie deal out of my suffering.”

“Oh yeah, my agent did.” He pulls his phone out and flicks through it, turning it around to show Steve a photo of a one-armed green and grey alien that it takes Steve a moment to recognise as James.

“Oh, um. Cool?”

“Okay, so, I can totally sense that you’re not getting it, but trust me it’s going to be epic. This is my fucking moment, man. I need this to work out so bad, you have no idea. You should totally come to the premiere and tell all the reporters how amazing I am.”

Steve thinks about how he’s definitely not going to be allowed to go to a public event where James is present. Especially where James and _cameras_ are present in the same space.

“I’d like that,” he says wistfully.

His phone lights up.

`**Nat:** Fri found another file.`

James doesn’t notice his distraction. “Yeah, I can’t fucking wait. Mostly I’m excited for it to be over so I can get a full night’s sleep. Do you know how much prep goes into these kinds of things? My agent has me up hours almost every night, memorising faces of celebrities I’ve never heard of.”

“Oh, God. My apologies to your therapist.”

James snorts. “Sure, like I can afford a therapist.”

Steve looks up from his phone. “There’s free services for vets.”

“But I’m not a vet.”

“You’re what?” Steve says, and realises as he says it that at least part of him had truly thought that James had been in the army in this century. The Bucky parts and the James parts are getting all mixed up in his head.

“At least, not an American vet. No one claimed me while I was in hospital and no one’s claimed me since. I thought when my face was all over the news…” He gives a rueful smile. “But nothing. At least, nothing believable. And nothing from this century.” He laughs, like Steve can get in on the joke. Which Steve absolutely can_not._

“In California you, you fought that guy.”

James winces. “Honestly, I don’t even remember what happened. I googled it, though, and, like, people can do crazy stuff on adrenaline, right? So that has to be all that was.” He makes the half-shrug again. “I must have picked up something useful while I was on set and it just, I dunno, took over.” He shrugs again, and looks down into his coffee. “That’s what I told the cops, anyway. They reckon I must’ve had training but, y’know. Like I said. There’s no records of me anywhere.”

Steve can feel his heart rabbiting away at the base of his throat. There are no records from the army because James hadn’t been in the army. At least not recently. He had been frozen in Siberia. And he’d learned to fight in the 40s.

James looks at him, startled. “I know that face,” he says. “That’s a conspiracy face. You’re thinking conspiracy thoughts.”

“I’m…” Steve chokes, “…not.”

“Liar.”

At least James sounds good-natured about it.

Steve tries to keep it in. He clamps his lips together. He sets his jaw.

It comes out anyway.

“Are you _sure?”_ he says, almost begging. “Are you _sure_ you’re not him?”

He regrets it as soon as the words are out. James gets a heart-breakingly sympathetic look on his face and Steve doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to hear another nail in the coffin.

“Forget it,” he mumbles. His phone lights up again and he grabs for the diversion.

`**Nat:** Steve, we got footage of the left arm.`

“I—” says James. Steve hunches in, pretending to be totally absorbed with his phone. Which is why he almost misses what happens next: There’s a soft noise and a blur of movement and he looks up just as a passing waitress trips. He shoots out a hand on automatic, but it’s too late: an entire cup of coffee upends directly into James’s lap.

“Shit!” James yelps, and Steve sees eyes turning their way. The waitress starts apologising profusely, dabbing at James with a handful of napkins. Steve grabs two menus and opens them, praying like hell that no one got a good look at either of their faces. If word gets out that James Smith and Captain America are having coffee together, well. _‘Shit’_ doesn’t begin to cover it.

The waitress is speaking quietly, thank Christ. At least she’s not drawing too much more attention to them. Steve peeks over the top of the menus but ducks behind them straight away. There are still too many people looking over, though they mostly just look like they’ve witnessed an embarrassing fall rather than a scandalous date.

“I don’t think anyone’s noticed,” Steve says quietly.

His phone lights up on the table again and he looks down automatically.

`**Nat:** Steve`

`**Nat:** Steve, Winter’s left arm is`

The waitress is still muttering to James, and Steve distractedly tunes in to what she’s saying. It’s not an apology, or even a polite chat. It doesn’t even sound English. She says something that could be Dev Yacht, and James’ head lolls forward. He blinks slowly, and his right hand closes into a loose fist. He’s facing Steve but his eyes are a million miles away. It’s a blankness that Steve’s seen before: on the faces of vets at the VA, and men at the service league, and, more recently, on James’s face the day at the store.

Steve moves on instinct. He pushes the waitress back, slapping her hands away from where she had been clutching James’ shoulder and, intimately, his thigh. He takes a second to shake off the prick of jealousy—_inappropriate, Steve_—which leaves him way too open for a counter-attack that he hadn’t even been expecting. Before he knows what’s happening the waitress is spinning on her heel and her other foot is striking the back of his knees, dropping him to the floor.

_Not a waitress,_ he realises far too late. He’s already launching to his feet when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

“Stay down,” someone says, and he looks up to see a waiter—or at least, a guy dressed like a waiter—eyes intent on where the waitress is leaning back over James, whispering urgently.

Steve does _not_ stay down. He surges to his feet and the waiter must get a good look at his face because he stumbles backwards. “You!” he says. “What are you—” and then Steve’s throwing him into a wall. The waitress-slash-definitely-also-an-assassin turns to look and recognises Steve as well.

“Captain,” she snarls, then she bends over James who’s still sitting and staring dead ahead like Steve hadn’t just tossed a human into a wall like a basketball. The rest of the diner is emptying fast, civilians clutching their bags as they scramble for the exit. Steve grabs the closest projectile—a half-empty plate—and flings it like a frisbee. The waitress ducks and it narrowly misses her head.

“James!” Steve yells. “Get out of here!”

The waitress bares her teeth at him and snaps two final words. Steve’s blood turns to ice in his veins because he finally recognises the language, and the last two words are ones he knows.

_Freight car,_ she says in Russian, and James’s eyes snap into focus, though the rest of his body stays slack against the table.

“James?” Steve checks, searching for a weapon and a way to get himself between James and the waitress.

“Soldat,” the waitress says. “Kill him!”

He looks around, but there’s no one else left in the restaurant. Just the three of them and the downed waiter lying prostrate against a wall. “Kill who?” he starts to say, but he’s interrupted by something flying towards his face. He flinches and metal grazes his cheek, whipping his head to the side. On instinct he hurls himself backwards over the nearest table, rolling awkwardly and coming up with both fists raised in front of his face.

He kind of expects to see another undercover agent dressed as a waitress, but the person squaring off against him isn’t in costume.

“James?” he says again, dropping his fists. “What are you—” The metal arm smashes right through the table in between them, and James rips the wood apart, not taking his eyes off Steve as the pieces fling into opposite walls. His face is blank, though his chin is dropped like he’s angry; murderously so.

Steve’s seen those eyes before. He knows who this is. The Fist of Hydra has finally been sent to kill him and he can’t even lift a hand to defend himself.

“Bucky?” he breathes.

The Winter Soldier advances. “Who the hell is Bucky?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS PLOT TWIST COMING?? WOAH.
> 
> Anyway today's fic rec is [Effects of Obliteration](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7550383/chapters/17171206) by geneticallydead. Featuring de-wintered Bucky Barnes and an Avengers group chat (obviously, I love).


	7. Public Displays of Destruction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, a sentiment that is clearly not returned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a lot of violence! If you're worried about anything in particular check the end notes for specifics.
> 
> 1000 hits! Shout out to the fans xoxoxo

Steve keeps backing up because moving forward means moving into attack range and the Soldier looks like he could rip Steve apart with the pinkie finger of his metal arm, which is apparently (un)miraculously working again.

“James,” he begs. “Wake up! Bucky, can you hear me?”

The Soldier’s eyes narrow and without seeming to move he hurls a chair at Steve, leaping after it so Steve only has a split second to duck and roll to avoid both the chair and the metal arm that disintegrates the table where he had been standing a moment before. He keeps moving, letting the momentum take him sideways. He’s trying to get the Soldier further into the diner without putting his back towards the waitress, who’s circling in mirror. With the way the metal arm is obliterating inanimate objects, Steve _really_ doesn’t want the Soldier getting out on the streets.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, a sentiment that is clearly not returned when the Soldier flings a fork at him at a speed that could easily slice through flesh.

_We were having coffee a minute ago,_ he thinks miserably. _James had been _flirting_!_

James is definitely not flirting now. Unless the 21st Century had taken a romantic turn towards public displays of destruction. James doesn’t even appear to be present. There’s nothing on his face that looks like the guy Steve had just been getting to know. Steve’s head is spinning, not at all helped by the blow he had taken earlier.

He’s still trying to play catch up with the implications of James Smith being the Winter Soldier. Because the Winter Soldier has been in operation for… decades. Which means James Smith is way older than he looks. Old enough to have been alive in the 40s. _Old enough to be Bucky._ Which is a conspiracy theory even Nat is going to have to believe.

But if Bucky’s been in Hydra hands all these years then…

Shit, the whole thing is too big to comprehend. Definitely too big to think about in the middle of a fight.

The important thing is that it’s Bucky, without a doubt. It’s _Bucky._

But there’s nothing of either James _or_ Bucky in the thing that stalks towards him now. And if either of them have any chance of making it out alive then Steve needs to finish this fight quickly without anyone getting hurt.

_Huh. Easy peasy._

He sidesteps another thrown piece of furniture—what looks like the entire top half of the diner counter—and then backs up towards what he’s hoping is the kitchen door. It swings open behind him and he spares only a split second to check that the room is clear but it’s enough of an opening for the Soldier to make a running leap at him, feinting with the metal arm before bringing his knee up to slam into Steve’s stomach.

Steve needs to stop focusing on the arm as the Soldier’s sole weapon. Clearly his entire body is designed for maximum damage output. The Soldier cements this fact by spinning in the air, intentionally missing Steve with one foot only to kick him with the other, _hard._

Steve goes down, rolls, rolls again, keeps rolling to avoid the Soldier’s heel going through his head until he hits a counter and scrambles for a weapon, sucking in breaths as he does and praying his ribs are only bruised, not broken. His hands close around something. A big metal wok, of all things. Steve raises it just in time and the Soldier’s foot clangs against the makeshift shield, permanently removing bacon & egg fried rice from the menu, no doubt. Steve grabs for the Soldier’s ankle, twisting to throw him sideways. The Soldier just spins with the momentum and his other foot comes flying towards Steve’s unprotected shoulder, connecting hard enough that Steve’s whole body gets thrown into the counter again. He uses both feet to push backwards and then scrambles upright, only noticing the waitress at the last second and barely ducking in time to dodge the knife in her hand. It gets him shallowly across the arm instead of in the heart, thank God, but he curses himself for getting distracted by a single assailant when he’s got _bigger damn problems._ The waitress tosses the knife into her right hand and picks up an honest to god meat cleaver in the other. On his other side, the Soldier advances.

“Well this is friendly,” Steve says, hemmed into a corner with little more than pots and pans at his disposal and no armour to speak of. The waitress flings the knife and Steve flinches to the side and kicks her in the stomach, wishing he was wearing his combat boots instead of _sneakers_. The Soldier doesn’t so much as move as he does melt: disappearing from one position and arriving at Steve’s side. His metal hand closes around Steve’s bicep, moving as smoothly as though it’s a real limb instead of the dead weight that James has been cramming in his pocket.

“James, Bucky, snap out of it,” he says, but the Soldier yanks him forward and then propels him over one hip and into the nearest wall. Steve jerks his head forward to take the brunt of the collision over the wider surface of his back, and then grabs for a fire extinguisher and opens it towards the Soldier’s face, hoping to incapacitate him so he doesn’t have to use it as a blunt force weapon.

“Finish him,” the waitress snarls, and Steve hurls the fire extinguisher at her instead, getting a satisfying _clang_ that he hopes puts her out of commission for long enough to get the Soldier down, too.

In a burst of inspiration he yells “Freight car!” and then repeats it in Russian, _“gruzovoy vagon,”_ but the Soldier doesn’t even hesitate before heaving his fist through the tiles where Steve’s head had just been. Steve ducks under the outstretched arm, grabbing a pan off a nearby grill as he backs up towards what he hopes is an exit. The pan is full of what might have been scrambled eggs in a past life. If the weight of the pan isn’t enough to deter the Soldier then maybe the smell of burnt sulphur will do the trick.

The Soldier takes one look at the pan and gives off the distinct impression that he’s doing whatever the Winter Soldier version of an eyeroll is. Which looks a lot like a normal eyeroll except murder-ier. Steve raises the pan anyway and ignores the _plop_ of food hitting the tiles at his feet. Now is _not_ the time to be thinking about food and safety regulations.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says again, which he hopes gives off enough of a vibe that he _could_ hurt the Soldier if he wanted. Even though he really doesn’t think he could. _“gruzovoy vagon”_ he says again, clumsily, but either he’s pronounced it wrong or the words by themselves are useless, because the Soldier doesn’t slow down. He doesn’t so much attack Steve as fling his body into Steve’s like he’s got no instinct for self-preservation. The door at Steve’s back splinters and they fly through the debris, landing hard on the ground outside. A few screams indicate that the kitchen staff are hiding in the outdoor bathroom, clearly trying to get clear of the fight. Steve’s winded from the weight of the Soldier landing square on his sore ribs, but he blinks awake in time to see the Soldier’s face turning towards the sounds of civilians.

He moves on instinct, throwing one knee over the Soldier’s waist and kicking up off the ground to roll them, twisting the Soldier as he goes. The Soldier refocuses on him in an instant and tries to keep them both rolling, but Steve slams his elbow down to stop the momentum of their bodies, pain shooting up his arm as he does. They end up with the Soldier face down and Steve awkwardly on top and they scrabble for a moment, both looking for better holds. But this time Steve has the upper hand and he uses his weight, leaning a knee into the Soldier’s kidney and using his other leg to kick the Soldier’s calves every time he tries to rise.

“Stay down,” he orders, trying to sound as Captainy as possible.

The Soldier grunts—the first sign in the whole fight that there’s an actual human in there—and throws an elbow back towards Steve’s bruised ribs. Steve grunts as the impact shoots agony right through his chest. Definitely something fractured in there. He somehow manages to stay on top. The Soldier launches his elbow back towards the same spot. Expecting it, Steve catches it with one hand and wrenches it higher, tipping them both sideways so the ground helps press the arm up and back. He hooks his freed leg over the Soldier’s waist, hanging on and chanting, “Stand down, stand down, stop fighting.”

The Soldier doesn’t comply. His captured hand scrabbles against the ground and he keeps throwing his body around in Steve’s grip, seeming not to care that his sole flesh arm is about to break.

_He’s going to hurt himself by trying to get free,_ Steve thinks, and in the next moment he realises what that means: he’s going to have to hurt the Soldier to stop him from doing something worse to himself.

“Stop fighting,” he begs, but it’s like trying to argue with a brick wall. A heavy, struggling, grunting brick wall. The Soldier hurls his body weight up and Steve almost loses his grip, only clinging on through sheer luck.

He wraps his other arm around the Soldier’s neck, grabbing hold of his own shoulder on the other side and then flexing, squeezing hard. His bicep bulges under the Soldier’s chin, forcing the Soldier’s head up and back, and Steve gets a glimpse of his face. It’s still blank, awfully so, and there’s not a flicker of fear as Steve presses harder, blocking off the Soldier’s air.

Despite the lack of expression the Soldier goes feral in his arms, wrenching back and forth in a bid to get free. Steve clings on. He’s got super serum in his veins but even he can’t hold his breath for more than a few minutes. He prays that it’s the same for the Soldier.

“Just a few minutes,” he promises quietly, more to ease his own conscience than to reassure the Soldier. He just has to hold on for a few more minutes, then he’ll have time to think, time to call the rest of the team, and time to get them both off the map before James—Bucky!—wakes up.

He’s just counted to 30 seconds in his head when a hand appears through the splintered kitchen door, quickly followed by a dirt-and-blood-smeared waitress.

“Ah, Christ,” Steve curses quietly. He presses down harder as though he can make the Soldier pass out faster. But even the Soldier must sense that Steve’s out of options because he tracks the waitress patiently, going still in Steve’s arms to preserve blood oxygen.

“You’ve been a pain in Hydra’s ass for so many years,” the waitress says, ripping a plank out of the ruined door and swinging it like a baseball bat. The thick metal hinge is still attached at one end and Steve doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out the kind of damage that thing could do with enough velocity. He desperately looks around for a weapon that’s close enough for him to reach without letting go of the Soldier. If he lets go now he’s not going to get another chance to take him down without serious injury.

The waitress tips her head to either side, cracking her neck while she advances, limping only slightly. “You’re the reason we lost the Insight and Winter Soldier programs but,” she grins, shrugs with only one arm, “guess we’ll be getting one of the programs back, huh? We’ve got you to thank for that, too. We wouldn’t have found the Asset if you hadn’t alerted us to its survival.” She tests the weight of the plank and gives a practice swing. Steve clenches his teeth. The Soldier still isn’t unconscious but Steve’s going to have to lose his advantage in order to stop himself getting a concave skull.

“Go to Hell,” he mutters, and he’s about to throw the Soldier sideways and lunge for a nearby stake when the waitress says, “Hold him, Soldier,” and instead of the Soldier trying to get free, all of a sudden he’s locking his metal arm around Steve’s, keeping them pressed together.

The waitress swings the plank down towards Steve’s head and Steve has no other option but to roll into it, tipping the Soldier back onto his stomach so he can take the brunt of the blow over his shoulder and back, which flare in agony. The waitress kicks him in the side, which he has no hope of dodging, and then pulls back for another blow. Steve releases the Soldier’s flesh arm to try and protect his face but the waitress slams the heel of her boot into his hand before he can lift it and he hears bones crunching. Pain shoots up his arm and he grits his teeth, yanking futilely at the Soldier. The hold that had given him such an advantage a few minutes ago is now being used against him.

“Let go!” he yells. “You’re choking yourself!” Because his bicep’s still being pressed into the Soldier’s neck and if the metal arm doesn’t withdraw they’re both going to get hurt.

But the Soldier doesn’t let go, even though Steve can see his lips going blue. Steve tries rolling back the way they came but the waitress adjusts easily, kicking at his broken hand and making him scream. This time she stands on his hurt shoulder, pinning him between her and the Soldier’s dead weight.

“See ya, Captain,” she says, smirking, stepping forward and leaning her weight against him. She raises the plank and then the wood is hurtling towards his face.

The urge to tuck his head down is overwhelming but he fights the instinct and instead lifts his chin so that the blow lands on the side of his face instead of the back of his head. He knows his bones can heal but he has no idea what level of damage his brain can sustain. His cheekbone splinters immediately and the pain that shoots across the side of his face is so intense that for a long moment he simply can’t see. From the awkward hang of his jaw he can tell that there’s something dislocated, though it’s impossible to know the extent of the injury. Hot blood gushes from his gaping mouth, splashing the back of the Soldier’s neck. The Soldier doesn’t so much as flinch; appearing to finally be unconscious. Steve tugs futilely but the metal arm is locked in place. When he looks up the waitress is twirling the plank again. There’s blood at the metal end, and something that looks horrifically like it could be a ripped section of his own face.

“Ow,” she says, oozing fake sympathy. “That must hurt. Guess I’d better put you out of your misery.” She raises the weapon and Steve shuts his eyes. There’s no way he can avoid it this time.

Heat explodes across his face and shoulder and for a moment he thinks that this is what a smashed-in head feels like but then he’s opening his eyes and the waitress is crumpling to the ground.

Iron Man lands a second later, arm still extended as his repulsor powers down. He takes a second to look for more attackers before his visor flips open and points at Steve accusingly. “You were supposed to bring coffee back an hour ago.”

Steve tries to get to his knees, gesturing urgently at the Soldier. “Uh-ee!” he manages, blood spraying from his ruined mouth. He claws frantically at the metal arm, and Tony must figure it out because he plants one boot on the Soldier’s chest and wraps both hands around the metal arm and then tugs. With a sound like fifty rusty gates opening at once the arm retracts a fraction of an inch, and then powers down all at once and Tony lurches backwards, leaving the Soldier blue-faced and still. Steve rolls him onto his back, checking for a pulse while Tony talks urgently into his visor.

“Holy shit, it’s the actor, the, _yes, him,_ get medical, get—”

There _is_ a pulse, thank God: weak but definitely present, though the Soldier hasn’t started breathing even with both of their arms out of the way. His mouth is moving just slightly, like a fish out of water, which Steve wildly guesses is an automatic muscle response to asphyxiation. The Soldier lies unmoving on the ground. He looks like Bucky. He _is _Bucky. Dying; almost dead. Almost dead thanks to _Steve_. On autopilot he moves to start rescue breaths but he gets as far as tilting Bucky’s face up before Tony pushes him out of the way and leans in, pressing his own lips to Bucky’s blue ones.

Blind rage fills Steve before he sees Bucky’s chest rise a bare fraction, and then he remembers he’s hardly got enough of a face to breathe for himself, let alone breathe for someone else. He grabs for Bucky’s flesh wrist and tries to convince himself that the pulse is stronger as Tony keeps breathing, tilting his hand as he tries for a better angle. Steve can tell the air is barely getting anywhere. God, he’s probably ruined Bucky’s trachea. What if Tony can’t—

_No, it’s not possible. Bucky’s not going to die while he watches._

_“Aaah,”_ he moans, incapable of anything else. He squeezes Bucky’s hand, puts it on his cheek, turns his face into it. Gets blood all up and down Bucky’s arm. _Bucky, please, come on._

He can hear movement from inside the diner and he tries to warn Tony but the next second Sam is rushing out, gun drawn and still in his jeans and polo. Nat’s right behind him.

“Ssaa—” he tries, his tongue feeling somehow swollen and numb at the same time. He’s still clinging to Bucky and Sam takes the whole scene in stride, pulling supplies out of a bag Nat hands him and falling to his knees on Bucky’s other side. He works around Tony, who’s still doing his best to push air into Bucky’s starving lungs.

Things happen in a dream for a while. There’s a lot of yelling, which Steve doesn’t listen to. Someone finds the kitchen staff and manages to get them clear. Someone tries to pull him away but he refuses to be moved, and eventually they give up and start wrapping bandages around him where he sits, taping his jaw back into a semblance of normality. The side of his face is a wall of agony, and he nods at the first offer of drugs, even though he knows it’s barely going to be enough to take the edge off.

Sam can’t get the trach tube down Bucky’s throat and he cuts into Bucky’s neck instead, hands somehow steady against the pale skin. Steve can’t help crying out at that, though it turns to a moan thanks to the bandages effectively holding his jaw shut. Dr. Cho comes out of nowhere, taking the tube out of Sam’s hand and sliding it into place, and then the plastic pump is there and Bucky’s chest rises in the first full breath he’s had in over ten minutes. Steve sobs, face aching, and the only reason he doesn’t clutch Bucky to him is because Tony waylays him halfway, hustling him to the side so Bucky can be lifted onto a waiting stretcher. He tries to follow but gets intercepted again when one of Cho’s assistants comes up to him with a wheelchair, clearly anticipating him needing to get wheeled out, which is enough of an affront that he gets completely derailed and suddenly the world filters back in.

The noise is instantly crushing, his face feels like it’s dripping off him in acidic waves. He manages a single withering look at the assistant before Tony’s leading him back through the diner. He gets a chance to see the demolished kitchen, and the first wave of guilt is immediately trumped by a larger, second wave when he gets led into the eating area. Not a single table or chair appears to have survived its encounter with the Winter Soldier.

“Don’t worry,” Tony says cheerfully, “Our insurance will cover it.” He tugs on Steve’s arm and Steve realises he had stopped walking. He stumbles to the entrance and lets Nat hold up a space blanket, of all things, clearly screening him from any cameras nearby. Bucky’s nowhere to be seen.

“Nnnn,” Steve tries, regretting it immediately when the vibration sets up an echoing rattle in his cheek.

“Yep,” Tony agrees amicably, and then he’s shoving at Steve’s head to get him into the backseat of the waiting car like Steve’s some petty crook on TV. He goes easily, but only because he’s pretty sure that getting out of the area is the best way to find out where Bucky’s been taken.

Nat gets in right behind him, still holding up the silver sheet, then Tony climbs in and the car starts moving before the door is fully shut.

Steve waves his hands in protest, trying to indicate the diner they had just left. He tries to finger-spell S-A-M but he’s only got one working hand and it doesn’t come out great.

“Another car is coming for the others,” Tony says, correctly interpreting his gestures anyway. He hands him a StarkPad with a note taking app open. “Now do you want to tell me why I found you throttling James Smith while a waitress tried to kill you, or would you prefer to wait for the news outlets to come up with a story instead?”

Steve grabs for the pad and types one-handed as fast as he can, turning the StarkPad back around as soon as he’s done.

WINTER SOLDIER

Tony looks at Nat, whose face has hardened into something unreadable. “Yeah” she says, already pulling out her own phone and typing furiously. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

“Wait, wait.” Tony’s shaking his head. “The Soldier was there?”

BUCKY, he types.

He turns the StarkPad back around and gestures between the two words. To their credit, neither Nat nor Tony tries to dispute him. Nat only takes a deep breath, before looking him square in the eye.

“You’re sure?” she says.

Steve returns the look just as unflinchingly. He nods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: This chapter features blood, bones breaking, and asphyxiation. If you want to skip the chapter here's a summary instead:  
Steve is attacked by the Soldier and the Hydra agent disguised as a waitress, and his hand, ribs, and jaw are badly injured. He manages to get his arm around the Soldier's neck in an attempt to render him unconscious, but the Soldier uses the metal arm to hold Steve's arm in place for much longer than necessary, damaging his trachea. The rest of the team arrive and administer first aid, including a trach-tube for the now-unconscious Soldier.
> 
> And your customary Read More! This week the rec has nothing to do with the chapter except that there is coffee. [Steve Rogers: Always Surprising, Never Delightful](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21569614) by powercrow :D
> 
> PS: this fic is unbeta-ed, and it's also my first fic in this genre. If you notice any bugs that need squashing please let me know. I'm also open to constructive criticism if u have pointers.


	8. Now For Your Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I have an idea,” Clint says slyly. He’s looking at Steve with the face that means he’s just put shaving cream in the coffee dispenser.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slow update I got distracted writing Witcher smut for a hot second. And then also started writing a Real Book. Give it a few weeks before my self-imposed New Years Resolutions go back into the hole from whence they came

He refuses morphine three times in a row until Dr. Cho explains that the bones in his right hand have already started to set, and she needs to rebreak them to make sure they go in the right place. With his souped-up blood, morphine is the _minimum_ he’s going to need.

_Just a bit,_ he relents, and then relents again when she massages the first break into separating and “a bit” turns out to be useless to him. He clenches his injured jaw and tears immediately spring to his eyes. The rest of the team pretend to look away. All except Tony, who’s gazing at the live footage of Steve’s bones like he wants to propose to Cho’s tiny portable x-ray thingy. Or maybe buy the invention off her. Hard to tell sometimes, with Tony. 

Cho’s been cleared to sit in on the debrief, so she works on his right hand while Steve types awkwardly with his left, trying to explain what had happened in as few words as possible while also trying to ignore the feeling of someone kneading his splintered bones back into place. Signing would be easier but he doesn’t know many one-handed signs and getting Clint to try and translate would be a nightmare. Eventually he moves the StarkPad from the table to the ground so he can type with his head bent between his legs, a humiliating position that he endures simply because sitting upright is pure agony with gravity working against the bandages holding his jaw in place.

Cho reaches for more morphine but he shakes his head (and yikes, that hurts too). He needs to be thinking straight for what comes next. The only thing he’s been told is that Bucky is in the Avengers building. Since there’s only one area equipped to handle medical issues he’s got a good idea where _precisely_ Bucky is, but if he wants to keep it that way he needs to stay on his A game, and right now he’s barely on his B game. He needs his team beside him.

Even so, it takes almost half an hour to get out just the bare bones of the story. When he’s finally done he drapes himself over his knees to wallow in misery while he lets the rest of the team come to the same conclusions he had.

Clint speaks first. “So, James Smith is definitely the Winter Soldier?”

“So it would seem,” Agent Hill says.

“And we have confirmed kills from the Winter Soldier from as far back as 1950?”

“A French Defence Minister was killed in 1956, which was the first confirmed Winter Soldier assassination, though there are rumours he operated well before that including—” Steve feels her look at him, but he doesn’t bother lifting his head “—before the end of the second world war.”

“Which means,” Tony sums up, “that James Smith was alive at the same time Steve was.”

Nat’s sitting very still at the other end of the table. When she speaks, her voice is inflectionless. “And the Winter Soldier appears to be under some kind of neurological control when he’s in action. The kind of control that could cause long-term amnesia.” No one needs to ask her how she knows about the effects of neurological control.

Cho splints one of Steve’s fingers. He’s pretty sure his shifting bones are actually audible in the silence.

Nobody says anything.

Tony spins his chair in circles, tapping the armrests.

Agent Hill finally speaks up. “I think we have to come to terms with the fact that James Smith is probably Bucky Barnes, and both of them are the Winter Soldier.”

Steve feels them looking at him again. He waves his free hand at them. He’s too exhausted to really enjoy the _Told You So_ moment. Cho slides something into place in his pinkie finger and fresh tears spring to his eyes. He blinks them away.

“We need to decide what we’re going to do from here,” Fury says in that voice that means he’s the one who’s going to be doing the deciding. “Firstly, we can’t let a threat like the Soldier loose on the streets of New York”

_He’s not a—_Steve begins to type, but Hill interrupts before Friday even gets the words onto the main screen.

“We need to keep everyone safe from the Winter Soldier, but we also need to keep James safe from everyone else.”

Well, that’s a point he can’t argue with. The team start discussing protection detail but he misses most of it when Cho squeezes the knuckle of his fourth finger. He forces the flinch down, not letting the pain even stutter his breathing. Cho analyses the live footage of Steve’s bones as she manipulates his throbbing hand, and Steve wonders if she’s doing it on purpose as a punishment for refusing pain relief. She must find another unclean break, this time in the meat of his palm, because she begins to massage with the tips of her fingers, watching the screen until Steve can see the moment the bones separate. He feels it happen, too, a sharp wedge of pain that makes all his fingers twitch. Cho keeps working the bone, aligning it just by sight, and then he has to turn away because the footage is making him queasy.

“Well that won’t work,” Tony’s saying, and Steve hopes he hasn’t missed too much of the conversation. “We can’t just keep him prisoner here.”

Clint snorts. “You told Steve the Winter Soldier would be bunking in his room, remember?”

Steve takes a moment to compose his face because he actually had forgotten that, and the thought of sharing a room with Bucky is… tantalising. Even if Bucky never gets his memory back.

“He’s a famous actor,” Bruce reminds them.

“Moderately famous,” Tony corrects.

“Moderately famous, sure, but either way he’s got enough people following him that they’re going to notice if he goes missing.”

Steve realises something and starts typing, but Nat figures it out in the same moment and beats him to it. “That’s probably why Hydra could get so close,” she muses. “He’s had so many paparazzi following him around they had to take the first opportunity they could get.”

“Okay so we just have to make sure he’s got people around him all the time?”

“That sounds like hard work.”

Nat steeples her fingers. “Not to mention, we’ll never take a Hydra agent alive if they don’t get a chance to come out of hiding and try to snatch the Soldier.”

Steve raps his knuckles on the table and points at Nat, hoping his glare is enough to get his disapproval across. They weren’t going to use Bucky as _bait._

“It’s not a terrible idea,” Hill defends. Steve glares at her, too.

“You can quit it with that look,” Fury tells him. “The other option is to let him go with every tracker we can think of, so when he gets taken we can go find him.”

Steve’s too shocked to glare this time.

“Didn’t think you’d like that idea, either.”

Sam finally pipes up. “Listen,” he says. Steve relaxes. Ever the voice of reason, Sam’s gonna know what to do. But Sam just says, “I think we gotta let that happen, too.”

Steve hopes he looks as betrayed as he feels.

“Let me explain, Cap. Obviously we can’t keep him here. Dude’s got a life to live, too. But look, Hydra’s got no intel from their attempted kidnapping, except a few distance-shots of you beat half to hell. Which, by the way, _damn.”_

_Thanks,_ Steve signs with as much sarcasm as he can inject into a single gesture.

“What I’m _saying_ is that Hydra doesn’t know what happened. They’ll probably find out that you and James, er, Bucky, were both there, and they’ll get their hands on the autopsy reports no doubt, so they’ll know that one agent died from a repulsor to the head and one died from internal bleeding with a bunch of impact fractures—nice, by the way—But that’s all they’re gonna get, as long as nobody else has any other photos. And we can use that to our advantage.”

_How?_ he types.

Nat picks up where Sam left off. “We tell the media that agents were trying to kill _you._ We let Hydra think that we haven’t even guessed the connection between them and James. For all they know, the agents didn’t even turn James into the Soldier.”

Hill leans in. “A process that we’re going to need a full report on, by the way.”

Things are getting more complicated by the second. Tony seems to feel the same way.

“Okay but that still doesn’t protect anyone if we put James back on the street? What if he gets Winter-ed in public? And don’t tell me we’ll _keep an eye on him._ We saw how much damage he caused today before we could get there. We need someone on the ground, by his side, 24/7.”

“I have an idea,” Clint says slyly. He’s looking at Steve with the face that means he’s just put shaving cream in the coffee dispenser.

“Oh no,” at least three people say. Steve doesn’t join them but he exudes _Oh no_ with every molecule of his being.

“How much do you want to get to know Smith?” Clint asks, still with the same sly expression.

Nat catches on. “Actually,” she says, “that’s not the worst idea.”

_What isn’t?_ Steve types.

The rest of the table seem to figure it out one-by-one. Sam hides a laugh behind a cough. Tony doesn’t bother hiding it at all. Fury just puts his head in his hands.

“Get Rogers’s babysitter in here,” he mutters. There’s a small explosion of laughter from the rest of the table.

Friday’s smooth voice cuts through the noise. “It looks like someone did manage to get a photo of Captain Rogers and Mr. Smith,” she says. A photo pops up on screen. It’s from almost directly perpendicular to the two of them, so it gets both their faces in profile with their coffee cups in between. There are a few shoulders in the way but it’s immediately obvious that it’s Steve and James. James has his head tipped back, laughing out loud. Steve is grinning at him. “Would you like me to deploy the You Said You Weren’t Filming protocol, boss?”

“Go ahead, Fri, but don’t delete the image completely.” Tony looks at Steve. “We might need it.”

Everyone’s grinning at him, and just like that it finally clicks why.

Well, that’s certainly one way of keeping close to Bucky.

_Shit,_ he signs weakly.

“Now, now, Cap, don’t let your new boyfriend see that foul language.”

He flips them all a collective bird.

_New boyfriend._

Oh, God. He can’t do that. He can’t pretend to date James when he’s still in love with Bucky.

Except… Except… it’s for his protection, right? This is for Bucky’s _protection._ _And_ James’s. Still…

_I don’t think this is a good idea,_ he types.

“It’s our only idea,” Tony points out, still spinning in his chair like they’re discussing a holiday instead of the imminent implosion of Steve’s love life. “It’s not like you have to pause any romances or anything, unless you’ve been seeing people on the sly, which I know you haven’t because Friday would tell me.”

“No I wouldn’t, boss.”

“Whatever. This is a great plan. I like this plan. Smith can hang out with Avengers and no one will blink twice.”

“We _just_ got rid of the reporters hanging around at the doors,” Sam argues. “And you can’t make Steve _or_ er, James-slash-Bucky come out to the world just because it’s convenient.”

At his side, Dr. Cho begins to tape up the rest of his fingers, apparently satisfied that everything had been broken enough times for one day. Steve’s heart not included.

“If I could offer a suggestion?” she says coolly to the group. “Perhaps this is something you should be taking to Mr. Smith, first?” Steve blushes and makes to get up and she pushes him firmly back into his seat. “Not you, Captain.”

He lifts his hand. It’s taped up against a hand-shaped splint, each finger held securely in place. He _felt _each bone go where it was supposed to go. What more could she possibly do to him?

“Your hand’s all set,” Cho confirms. “Now for your face. Fair warning: this one’s going to make you scream.”

The rest of the team double-time for the exits.

_What face need?_ he types, trying not to think too hard about how the diminutive Cho is planning to rebreak his jaw.

“Actually, your jaw is fine. Everything healed normally. It’ll only take a day or two before you can take those bandages of. I just wanted a chance to talk to you alone.”

He swings wildly from fear to relief and then straight back to fear. This doesn’t sound good.

“Mr. Smith is being held in the Avengers medbay downstairs.”

Ha, he knew it! Still…

_Bucky,_ he corrects. Hadn’t Dr. Cho heard the discussion? Everyone agrees that James _is_ Bucky.

“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” she says. “We ran some scans to check for any swelling or bruising in Mr. Smith’s head. No,” she holds up her hand, “don’t worry, we didn’t find anything immediately dangerous. He’s in a medically induced coma at the moment, though he’s burning through our drugs faster than any human should. Which leaves some questions for another time.”

_A super-serum,_ Steve types, glad to finally be putting dots together.

“Perhaps,” Cho allows. “I’m not at liberty to discuss my patient’s care, outside of anything that’s directly related to civilian safety.” She pauses for a moment, apparently picking her next words with care. “Having said that, what I _can_ tell you is that the scans showed… significant damage.”

Steve feels all his blood drain from his face and hands.

“Not from your fight,” Cho is quick to assure him. “Though how that’s possible is anyone’s guess. The damage we found is… severe. And old. Today Mr. Smith asphyxiated for almost ten minutes, in addition to the physical injuries he sustained. But there’s no indication that either of those things will cause any lasting damage. He’s certainly enhanced at least in some regards.”

The implication, of course, is that something much worse must have happened in order to leave permanent scars.

He deliberates a moment before typing, _Will he be okay?_

“We’ll bring him out of the coma in the next few hours. After that, his treatment will fall to whichever medical authority he chooses. Having said that…” She looks at him with an inscrutable expression. “I’m also _your_ main care provider, and as such I think I should warn you against raising your hopes too far.”

_Bucky is—_

She lifts a hand before he can type anything else. “I understand that you have history with Sergeant Barnes, but that isn’t Mr. Smith. Brain damage this extensive is almost categorically incurable. You seem to be operating under the assumption that Bucky and James are either the same, or at least interchangeable, and I want to make sure that you’re aware of the fact that James is his own person, with his own life, and you might not necessarily be a part of that life.”

Steve reaches for his StarkPad and finds that he has nothing to write. Even when he was a kid he knew that Bucky would eventually get a wife, a family, a life that didn’t include Steve. But the thought of this Bucky… of James existing without even knowing who Steve is?

He would do it. Of course he would. He would stay away from Bucky if that’s what Bucky wanted. If that’s what _James_ wanted. But he would live the rest of his life knowing that his best friend—and, secretly, the love of his life—was just out of reach.

Once, Bucky had promised that he would be with Steve forever. _Til the end of the line._ But the end of the line has been and gone, and it had been Steve that hadn’t been there for Bucky.

He closes his eyes. Pictures the moment. Bucky’s hand on his shoulder. Steve’s heart broken and his parents both gone and nothing in his future, and despite his own bleak prospects he’d looked at Bucky and Bucky had said _I’m with you til the end of the line,_ and Steve had been so so close to just… telling him. Asking for a kiss. Asking for _everything._

But he hadn’t, because he hadn’t been good enough for Bucky then. And he’s not good enough for James now.

In the end, the only thing he types is _I understand._

Dr. Cho puts a hand on his shoulder and leaves him to it.

Steve gives himself five minutes to wallow in self-pity before hauling himself to his feet and heading to the medbay. A nurse stops him as soon as the lift doors open, like they’ve been expecting him to turn up and try to get in. He meekly follows her directions and finds himself in a waiting room, of all things. It’s sparsely furnished which makes sense, he supposes; it’s not like there are a lot of people doing much waiting in this building. Everyone either has their own rooms or has made it clear that they’re okay with non-family visitors in the event of an emergency.

But James isn’t an Avenger, and he isn’t family, and he hasn’t asked for Steve.

He pulls out the StarkPad to start a field report, and he settles himself in to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand for your scheduled 'Read More' may I thoroughly recommend [Make It Till You Fake It](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17760791) by AggressiveWhenStartled, featuring so many good laughs and the classic Fake Dating trope (with a twist!)


	9. Operation Steemes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Actually,” Steve sighs, “we were thinking along the lines of a more… social arrangement.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay!

“So, my options are to either, A: go on a murderous rampage, or B: get locked up here forever?”

Steve winces. “Not… forever. Just until we take down whatever Hydra cell is trying to get you.”

“Trying to get me,” James repeats. “Because—and I want to make sure I’m getting this right—apparently I’m a murder machine in my sleep.”

Steve winces again. “Something like that, yeah.”

James just sort of squints at him a bit. His neck is mottled blue-and-black from under his chin to beneath the hospital gown. Steve waves at the bruising. “The fact that you can already talk is pretty good evidence that you have some sort of healing enhancement, they might be trying to recover your… skillset. And your right arm is almost as strong as the metal one.”

James looks down at his left side, where the metal arm lays still and un-murdery, like it hadn’t almost killed them both yesterday.

After a long pause James sighs. “Huh,” he says. “Well that explains why I woke up in handcuffs.”

The inch-thick ankle-thigh-wrist-chest restraints were decidedly not ‘handcuffs’, but Steve doesn’t feel the need to correct James. “It’s not your fault,” he says instead. “You’re not the dangerous one, here.”

“Yeah, no, I got that. I eat cheerios for breakfast and google cats in my spare time. I’m not exactly murder material. I’m just having trouble with the, uh, _sleeping killer robot_ bit. How can I not remember any of this?”

“Cho, er… the doctor said she talked to you about brain damage?”

“I have no memory of my life prior to 2014,” James says dryly. “I already knew I had brain damage. But it’s always been in the past I just…” His face twists. “I thought I was through with that, you know?”

Steve’s heart squeezes painfully. “I don’t know,” he admits. “No one knows what you’re going through.” He fights the urge to put his hand over James’s where it rests on the bedspread. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure you don’t forget anything else.”

“Because you fight bad guys, and bad guys are doing this to me,” James says, pinching his nose. “They made me forget. Any clarification on that?”

“Right, so, it seems Hydra has a, a way of manipulating people. Or at least, I guess… triggering them into a different… state. Which probably affects memory stuff.”

“You’re really bad at explaining things. Has anyone told you that you’re really bad at explaining things?”

“Cho said you asked for me specifically! I can leave if you’d rather—”

“I asked for ‘you specifically’ because the last thing I remember is drinking coffee with Captain America, and then I woke up with a tube down my throat and a pile of metal holding me to the bed!” He slaps the frame pointedly. Steve backs up. “Is this how all your first dates go?”

“S-sorry, sorry, I, I’ll go get someone else to—”

“No don’t _leave,_ Jesus, am I seriously in the Avengers compound right now? Is Thor going to beat me up?”

“No one’s going to beat you up, no one blames you for what happened.”

“Just be straight with me, man. What the hell is going on?”

Steve rubs his eyes and tries again, this time from the beginning. “The Winter Soldier has been working for Hydra—or, I suppose, working under Hydra’s command—for at least sixty years. It looks like whatever they did to you stops you from remembering any of th—”

“Hang on, hang on, hang on.” James’s flesh fingers are pulling at the hospital sheets. His metal arm is lifeless beside him. “You’re saying you think I’m _sixty?”_

“At least. It’s the only explanation.”

A look of relief crosses James’s face. “Oh, thank Christ, this is a set-up isn’t it? I get it, ha, ha, very funny.” At Steve’s dubious expression he continues. “This is more conspiracy stuff, right?”

“I know this all seems unlikely…”

“Unlikely! This is _batshit!_ Look at me, I’m not your friend!”

“I am looking,” Steve says sadly. He leans forward in the uncomfortable bedside chair. “James, I_ am_ looking. And I, I know it’s a lot to take in but no one’s going to… We’re not here to, to take your life away from you. We want you to be able to keep being James Smith.” He hesitates, then adds, “_I_ want you to keep being James Smith.”

“I thought you wanted your best friend back,” James says warily.

“I dropped my best friend off a moving train in 1947.” Steve forces himself to look James in the eye. “I think Hydra took his body and made him do things he shouldn’t have been made to do. And that’s on me. But what they did also ended up in you, and your life, and we’re going—_I’m_ going to do everything I can to make sure you get to live it.”

James holds his gaze for long enough that it gets uncomfortable, but Steve doesn’t look away. Finally James sighs and gestures for the water at his bedside, which Steve dutifully hands over. James sips carefully, and then fiddles with the straw.

“Okay,” he finally says. “Let’s put that aside for the moment. It still doesn’t change the fact that my options are either indefinite lockdown, or the chance that I might turn into the Terminator again and kill everyone around me.”

Steve slumps into his chair and feels the beginnings of a World Class Blush coming on. “Actually… There’s a third option.”

“Your face makes me think I’m going to like the third option.”

Steve blushes harder. “If you had someone nearby who could take you down again… That would be the safest option.”

“Who could take me down? What? You think I can just _hire an Avenger _as a_ bodyguard?”_

“Not, uh, no not quite.” He puts his head in his hands. “Do you mind if my, uh, manager joins us?”

“Your _WHO?_ You have a _manager?”_

“I mean, she’s not really—”

“Why would you need, I mean, you guys are supposed to be, okay, I never really thought about…”

“Friday?” Steve says, and a minute later Agent Hill walks in, followed by Nat.

“Hi James,” Nat says. “Nice to see you outside of work.”

“Am I in trouble?”

Nat gives a tiny little smile that’s somehow more terrifying than when she hadn’t been smiling before. “Not yet,” she assures him. Which isn’t assuring _at all._ She takes the seat next to Steve. Hill doesn’t take the third seat.

“Maria Hill,” she says, putting her hand out. James takes it carefully.

“Um, hi. Pleasure to meet you?”

“Pleasure’s all mine, Mr. Smith.” She turns to Steve. “Have you told him his options?”

“I’ve told him… _some_ options.”

Hill has a manila folder which she puts behind her back and holds with both hands like she’s at ease on the parade grounds. “Mr. Smith, I don’t want to worry you, but there’s no point in trying to ease the blow, either.”

“There never is,” James sighs. Steve frowns at him and wonders what other blows people haven’t eased for him.

“Without containment or further study you pose a threat to civilian safety that simply can’t be allowed.”

“Hey!” Steve blurts. That’s a little blunt!

Hill waves him quiet. “The fact of the matter is that the Winter Soldier is our biggest threat at the moment, and unknowingly or not we can’t let you put people at risk by potentially exposing them to him.”

“People have been around me for years before now,” James points out, “and it’s never been a problem.”

“We believe Hydra thought you died during Project Insight.”

James’s mouth twists into something that’s neither a smile or a frown. “I woke up a day after the carriers came down,” he admits.

Hill nods like she already knew that. “They may have only just become aware of your survival when you became… somewhat famous,” she says. “Regardless of whether or not you were a threat before, you’re certainly a threat now. If you plan on leaving this compound you need security.”

“An Avengers bodyguard,” James says again.

“Actually,” Steve sighs, “we were thinking along the lines of a more… social arrangement.”

“A more social arr—” Steve can see the precise moment James gets it. His face goes through an array of emotions before settling on hilarity, and he throws himself backwards, laughing and then coughing, holding hands over his bruised throat and wincing as each laugh bursts out. “Am I, is this, are you, _is Captain America asking me out right now?”_

“You don’t have to pick me,” Steve assures, though his stomach flip flops around inside him. Of all the ways he had once imagined asking Bucky out, being laughed at had been the overriding response he had always pictured. “Any of the Avengers would agree, though since you’ve already come out Nat and Wanda can’t help, and Tony’s pretty publicly with Pepper, and, well, Bruce probably isn’t the best option either, but… yeah, the rest of the team would be happy to help. Not for real, obviously. But for the cameras.”

“You’re telling me I could date _Thor?”_

Steve’s heart drops down to his feet. “Sure,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound as heartbroken as he feels. No matter how much he tells himself he’s okay with James not being Bucky, the slight still hurts. Which doesn’t even make sense. They’re talking about a _pretend_ relationship.

“Oh my god. This is the best day of my life. Can I have more than one? Can I have Thor on weekends and—oh my god what’s Falcon doing? Is he still—_oh my god is Hawkeye single? Can I date Hawkeye?”_ He looks at Steve and laughs at whatever expression Steve is trying not to pull “Oh, don’t be like that, I’m obviously not picking anyone, but, jeez, let me dream for a _second,_ yeah?”

Hill clears her throat delicately. “I’m afraid if this option isn’t to your liking then we’re running out of others.”

“What, you’ll just keep me locked up here if I don’t agree to date an Avenger?”

“No,” Steve says quickly, glaring at Hill, who glares right back. “No, you’re not a prisoner. But if you do decide to leave we’re going to have to maintain a watch on you at all times.” Steve looks at him carefully. “James, you really are a threat to others. And Hydra really is a threat to you. We want you to live your life but we can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to protect you unless we’ve got close contact.”

James just shakes his head. “Oh my god, you’re actually serious about this…”

“Afraid so,” Nat pipes in, examining her nails.

“That’s not… this doesn’t even make sense! I can’t _pretend to date_ someone. You guys have—” he waves his hand in the vague direction of the door “—_stuff!_ Avenging stuff!”

Hill falls out of military rest and puts her hands on James’s bedrail, still holding the manila folder. “Mr. Smith,” she says. “This team has been off their feet for four weeks straight trying to keep Hydra busy enough to leave you alone. Black Widow here spent a fortnight undercover in a place so vile I’m pretty sure I got scurvy just from reading the report. Steve and Iron Man only just got back from Alaska where they spent every day out in the open doing reconnaissance in the snow. Have you ever done reconnaissance in the snow? It’s not fun. My team has been putting in hundreds of hours trying to keep you safe, and if you think this isn’t something they would do then I’m afraid you don’t know them at all.”

“This is different,” James says weakly.

“We’re aware.” She holds out the manila file but doesn’t hand it over. “Before you make your decision you should know that while researching the Winter Soldier we came across medical records, which have been seen by a majority of the team without your permission, and I apologise for that. It happened before we knew your identity. I believe Dr. Helen Cho is making the records available to you as well, but in making this decision you should know that this team has seen what Hydra did to the Winter Soldier, and every one of us is prepared to take whatever steps necessary to make sure Hydra doesn’t get to do that again. To you or anyone else.”

James is pressed as far back into his bed as he can go. The folder looks both thin and full. There’s not much in it but what _is _in it is enough to make Steve want to puke. He’s seen the videos. It hits him, suddenly, that those things had happened to Bucky. _His_ Bucky. And they’d happened to James, too.

“Do we have to do this now?” he asks quietly.

Hill eyes James. “I’m afraid so,” she says. “Mr. Smith, the things Hydra did to the Soldier can only be classified as torture.” She puts the file on his bed and he doesn’t move to open it. “If they recapture you, I have no doubt they’ll subject you to the same treatment.”

Hill takes a seat, and this time Nat leans forward. “James,” she says. “I know this is hard to hear. You don’t have a lot of options but you _do_ have options. And we’re going to do everything we can to see you to the other side of this.”

“Right,” James says weakly. He’s still staring at the unopened file.

“You can stay here as long as you want. You’ll be kept as comfortably as possible, and I can assure you that when Stark says comfortable he means comfortable.”

“But I’ll be a prisoner.”

“In essence, yeah.” She smiles at him sadly.

“You can leave here, but if you leave without one of us you’ll be putting yourself at risk of capture, and any civilians in the way will be at risk as well.”

James sighs deeply. He looks at Steve out of the corner of his eye. “So, social arrangement, then?”

Hill leans forward. “It’s the best option,” she says gently. And, oh. Oh my God. Are they good-cop-bad-copping James?

“Okay,” Steve says. “I think, okay, that’s enough of that, maybe? James still has time to make a decision. We don’t have to—”

“Steve,” James says. “I pick Steve.”

Steve’s heart picks up a pair of drumsticks and begins to play the carcacha against his ribcage. “There’s no rush to make a decision,” he says, a little awkwardly.

James puts his right arm over his face. “There’s always a rush,” he says. Then he sits up straight. “Oh my God, oh, wait wait, I can’t—” he starts laughing. “Captain America would have to come out! You’d have to, shit, Steve, I can’t be the reason you lie to the public about something like that!”

“And that’s my cue to leave,” Hill says. “Friday, could you send Mel in?”

Like the world’s most choreographed handover, Hill leaves as Mel bounces in.

“So Operation Smigers is a go!” she says, flopping into the chair closest to James’s bed.

“You’re not in charge of naming operations,” Nat says with one raised eyebrow.

“I’m in charge of media,” she says haughtily. “And this is media. Oh, hi, by the way! Mel!” She has to get up again to reach James’s hand.

“Smigers is an awful couple name,” James tells her.

“Yeah well it was that or Jeve, so, whatever, take your pick.”

“Huh.” James looks thoughtful. “Stame,” he sounds out carefully.

“Wouldn’t it be more like Stame_s?”_

“Operation Stames?”

“Operation Steemes?”

Nat raps her knuckles on the arm of the chair. “We should stay on topic here, guys.”

“You don’t even have to be here,” Steve tells her.

“I know.” She winks. “But I like the drama.”

“Whatever, whatever, whatever,” James says, raising his right hand. “It doesn’t matter because I can’t date Steve, I don’t want anyone to lie about being queer. Is, I mean, shit, do any of you even date guys? I mean, Hawkeye? Maybe?”

“You don’t want Clint,” Steve jokes. “I’m doing you a favour. He thinks you do Avengers porn on the side.”

“Now _there’s_ an industry I should have gone into, huh? Imagine a porn-star dating Captain America, we’d be famous!” He breathes in sharply. “Wait, you _are_ famous, this is so much worse than I thought. The public’ll have a fit!”

“I’d be honoured to be the cause of that fit,” he says warmly. Everything feels a little warm, actually. Or maybe that’s just James. “Besides, we think the media attention is what was protecting you from an earlier Hydra attack. So a little press might work in your favour.”

James isn’t smiling now. “This is serious, Steve. People are going to hate you. I’m practically a nobody and do you know the kind of shit people say about _me?_ You’re _Steve Rogers._ You wear the American flag on your _chest._”

“About time the flag was associated with something good, don’t you think?”

“But, but, Christ, I look like your best friend! You think I _am_ your best friend! Isn’t that…” He searches for the right word. _“Weird?”_

“Not the weirdest thing I’ve seen in this century.”

He ignores the curious look Nat gives him.

“Oh God, I can’t be the reason Captain America turns gay.”

“Bi,” Steve corrects. “And you didn’t turn me anything. Believe it or not I knew I was different back in the 40’s, too.” He leans in. “The public can take it,” he says. “And the media will make up rumours regardless of what I say, so.”

“But, but, but—"

He gives in to the urge to take James’s hand. “Hey, it’s going to be okay. They can’t hurt me, remember?”

“This is a different kind of hurt,” James says quietly. Steve squeezes his fingers.

“I’m game if you are.”

James’s mouth twists and Steve recognises what it means. “Did you get Barnes into this kind of trouble, too?” James asks, but he squeezes back and Steve knows what he’s actually saying: _Let’s do this._

“Woo!” Mel says. She pumps the air with her fist. “Operation Steemes is a go! Great news! Also, while everyone’s in a good mood maybe now’s the best time to tell you that the photo leaked and—” she finger guns at James, “—your agent’s about to have an aneurysm.”

Steve goes bright red. “I thought Friday stopped the leak?” he says through the embarrassment. Nat’s eyeing his hand on James’s with the same face she uses when she’s putting jigsaw pieces together. Steve withdraws his hand.

“What can I say? Friday’s fast, but horny strangers are faster. I’ve got some ideas on how to handle it. It’s not a _bad_ photo, after all.”

James just squints at them. “What photo?”

* * *

The size of the crowd out the front of the compound gets so big that eventually they’re forced to call a press conference just to avoid the gates being broken. It barely leaves enough time to get their story straight. It certainly doesn’t leave enough time for James’s bruises to disappear.

In the end Mel sends him up with only Nat and Tony behind him. She’s written a statement which he reads perfunctorily, knowing full well that the real test is going to come as soon as he finishes it.

_I bumped into James while going for a walk. The café we were at was attacked. I took the attackers down with James’s help. Tony arrived to finish them off. _

Steve takes a breath.

Mel speaks into her own mic. “We have time for a few questions…?”

Every hand in the room goes up.

Steve holds in his sigh.

Mel already knows most of the reporters by name, and she points out one of her favourites.

“Captain Rogers, any truth to the rumour that you’re dating Mr. Smith?”

Straight to it then. “We’re friends,” he says, following his script.

Another reporter. “Looks like more than friends, Captain!”

“We bumped into each other and decided to get coffee.”

“What did you talk about?”

“His new movie.”

“Which is?”

Oh, Christ. “Uh, something about aliens and spaceships?” He can _feel_ Tony holding back his laughter. Asshole. “Honestly, most of it went over my head.” Tony does laugh at that. Double asshole. The rest of the room titters and he gives them his best interpretation of an I’m-just-a-kid-from-the-forties-what-would-I-know smile.

Success.

Another reporter. “Will Smith be joining the Avengers?”

“No.”

“But he helped in your fight today!”

“He was of admirable assistance today,” Steve confirms. They’d already decided on this line so that if any of the staff or patrons saw a glimpse of James they can explain it away. “James has some fighting experience,” he continues, then gives a small smile, “though we hope it stays on-screen from now on.”

Another reporter. “Where’s James now?”

Well, here goes. “He sustained a head injury during the fight and was brought back to Avengers compound for assessment.”

“He’s staying _with_ you?”

“In the compound, yes. For medical—”

“You went on a date and brought him home and you expect us to believe—”

“Fabian,” Mel interrupts. “That’s enough.”

God, the room is _buzzing._ Mel’s timed it perfectly, of course. The best way to make people think Steve and James are dating is to deny it totally. Impossibly, even more hands go into the air.

“Questions about the incident today, please,” Mel says sternly. She points someone out.

“Were the attackers known to you?”

Nat leans forward. “We’re working on that,” she says.

“Were they known to James?”

“Unlikely, but we’ll look into every possibility.”

And that’s it. They have no more information they need to feed to the public. Mel takes a few more questions just to be safe, and then starts to wrap things up. As soon as she stands up the rest of the room follows suit, shouting to have their questions heard.

Steve gives his Captain Wave and smiles at them benignly, then follows the others out of the door. As soon as he’s gone there’s a storm of activity from inside the room as the reporters rush to get their stories out first. James is waiting for them in the next room.

“That wasn’t so bad!” Mel says brightly. She’s already got her phone out, though, which means she’s ready to out-tweet whatever nonsense comes out of this. Steve just sighs.

“Are you secretly Steve’s Twitter person?” James says, looking over her shoulder. “Thank God. I thought it was odd that the real Steve stopped liking my tweets.”

“I like them,” Steve defends. “Just not, you know. Publicly.”

“Well you need to tell your Twitter lady to stop making you sound so old. Last week she tweeted that some politician was a rascal. She actually used the word rascal!”

Steve blushes.

“Oh my God, that was one of yours wasn’t it?”

“I stand by what I said.”

“Jesus, Steve.” He socks Steve gently in the shoulder, laughing, and Steve actually stumbles into the wall because for a moment there James looks so much like Bucky that it’s impossible to believe Bucky’s not about to put on his favourite battered old fedora and roll his eyes at Steve from under it.

James notices, and his laugh fades.

Nat and Tony vanish like the world’s best disappearing-at-the-first-sign-of-danger act.

Steve smiles at James, feeling the comedown from the media adrenaline. He feels like he’s aged another seventy years in the last ten minutes. The rush of _longing_ is both intense and familiar. He wants Bucky in his arms.

“You still see him, huh?”

“Yeah,” he admits. “But I meant what I said. I’m here to protect your life, not his.”

If he says it enough times, it has to be true. James looks like he’s about to do something; touch him, maybe, or argue. But instead he just smiles grimly and follows Mel down the hall.

Steve turns in the other direction to head towards the lifts and sees Nat standing next to them. She’s got her arms crossed and her eyebrows drawn.

“So,” she says. “It’s like that, huh?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lies.

Nat lifts a single eyebrow, and Steve holds out for ten whole seconds.

“Yes, okay, yes. I used to have a crush on Bucky. But that’s not… That was _seventy years ago,_ Nat. It’s long over.”

The single eyebrow goes a tiny fraction higher.

Steve sighs, and slumps.

“It won’t get in the way of the mission,” he promises.

“It better not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And for this chapter's read more, may I suggest [The Twilight Bark (And Other Things Bucky Has To Deal With On A Daily Basis)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16436480) by spacebuck, featuring fake dating for Bucky's safety that definitely definitely won't turn into real feelings, right?


	10. Fun Times at the Kitchen Royale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James invites himself into Steve’s space like he belongs there.

Dating James isn’t all that weird. Steve’s surprised by how unweird it is. They actually spend very little time alone, and even when they’re on dates it’s so carefully pre-constructed it hardly feels like work at all. Plus, he actually likes spending time with James. James throws himself into situations blindly, agreeing to almost anything as soon as he’s given the option. Agreeing to be Steve’s fake-boyfriend had just been the beginning. Since then he’s also agreed to such idiocy as calling Clint a friend (madness) and even going on an Avengers training trip (double madness) where he let Sam fly him around an abandoned warehouse (absolute madness). He makes lewd jokes even when Fury is in the room. He can’t cook for shit. He orders pizza with pineapple on the top and then eats the pineapple pieces one-by-one before the pizza. He’s silly, and handsome, and _maddening._ He’s _Bucky,_ but not. He’s all the things Bucky might have been. But _not._ Laughing with James doesn’t feel like laughing with Bucky. Mostly. They go on carefully planned dates to places with dim lighting and good exits. And James cracks a joke and Steve catches the outline of him and his heart stutters, and if Nat’s on security detail she just looks at him from across the room and the back of his neck burns.

James is his friend, he reminds himself near-daily. It’s no wonder they get along. Steve had loved Bucky but James is just a friend.

James doesn’t make it easy to be just friends.

James invites himself into Steve’s space like he belongs there. Keeps a hand on Steve whenever they’re out like he’s orienting himself, even when there’s no paparazzi around. Every touch makes Steve’s stomach flip flop in ways it hasn’t in over seventy years.

Nat doesn’t mention it out loud, but whenever Steve sees her watching he guiltily puts another few inches in between him and James. Steve’s sure it won’t take much more of this before half the team notices how he acts when they’re together.

Sometimes James catches him staring, and he waggles his eyebrows and puts his mouth on Steve’s shoulder to blow loud, wet raspberries that never fail to make him laugh.

It’s really no surprise at all that his Bucky dreams are turning into James dreams.

Which could explain why he sleeps so deeply. About a fortnight after the dating thing starts, he’s not woken by the sound of his front door being opened. What _does_ wake him up is the sound of his shield being drummed with a frying pan.

“CONGRATULATIONS,” Clint is yelling. “CONGRATULATIONS STEVE ROGERS! PARTY TIME BEGINS NOW!”

Steve stumbles up off the floor and drops his sock back on the ground where apparently he’d grabbed it instead of a weapon as he rolled out of bed.

“What,” he wheezes, trying to crawl back under the covers. Clint crawls right in after him, still somehow banging the damn shield.

“CONGRATULATIONS CAPTAIN,” Clint yells in his ear. “YOU ARE OFFICIALLY A MEME!” Steve pushes him off the bed and then throws a pillow after him. Clint chucks something back at him and Steve must be waking up now because he manages to catch it before it hits him in the head.

It’s Clint’s phone, and there’s a picture on it. Steve blinks at it for a few seconds before it comes into focus. It’s from James’s interview last night. James had gone on another awful talk show to promote his movie, and Steve had been forced to wait in the sidelines, watching intently for any sign that anyone was about to yell Russian while Steve wasn’t present. Which really just meant he got to watch as James made bad jokes and laughed and swapped dumb stories while wearing an open-cut navy suit jacket.

The host had been needling James for details about his love life, _what’s it like dating Captain America?_ and _Is he big all over?_ and _Does he call you Bucky in bed?_

James had stuck to his lines—well, Mel’s lines—for all of two minutes before veering way off script. “Like dating a really famous rhino,” he’d said, and “Nothing’s as big as his… ego,” and “His mouth’s too busy to call me anything in bed.”

That one had made Steve almost laugh out loud, blushing furiously. In fact, that’s the exact moment the photo’s captured. Someone from the crew must have taken it. James is centre-stage, his mouth open mid-chat with the host. And Steve’s on the sideline, staring at him with a dopey smile on his face and a blush right up his cheeks.

_Get you a man that looks at you like Captain America looks at James <strike>Buchanan</strike> Smith,_ reads the tagline.

“Keep scrolling, I saved the best ones.” Clint pops over the side of the bed to rest his chin on the mattress. The clock next to his head reads 5:15am.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” Steve asks.

“But how can I sleep with a bed so emptyyyy,” Clint wails, crawling over the side and plastering himself to Steve’s arm.

Steve squints at him. “You’re making fun of me.” He doesn’t need to share a bed with James, after all. There are no journalists on the _inside_ of the compound.

“I would never. Now _scroll!”_

Steve scrolls.

God dammit.

There’s a photo of an ice cream store. Steve’s in the background staring at the flavours like he’s going to devour the place whole.

There’s one of him staring at Tony in a blue tuxedo. One of him staring at a range of very small potted cacti. Inexplicably, there’s one of him staring at the Mona Lisa.

“I don’t understand the internet,” he says.

“Dunno what you’re complaining about. I’ve been trying to become a meme for _years_.”

“People draw you in Widow’s catsuit all the time. I thought that was a meme.”

“I’ll have you know those aren’t drawings, those are actual photos.”

“Even the one where you’re lassoing a dinosaur?”

_“Especially_ the one where I’m lassoing a dinosaur. Did you see the one with the lingerie? Sexy, right? On that note, you should probably stop scrolling unless you want a close-up of my bow and arrow, so to speak.”

“Why have you got a close-up of your—you know what, I don’t wanna know.”

“It’s for your man if he ever chooses to branch out and taste-test a different Avenger.”

“We’re not _actually_ dating,” Steve starts.

“You brought him home last night,” Clint points out.

“He _lives here!”_

“Uh huh. Whatever. And did you get a goodnight kiss? No? A goodnight blowie? A one-wristed wristie?”

Steve smacks him in the shoulder and Clint snorts and throws himself over Steve like a Renaissance lady in a Cabanel artwork.

Which is of course the exact moment James walks in.

“Steve pile!” he yells, and lands on top of Clint. It’s lucky he’s not wearing the arm because it weighs a tonne and two people is enough weight for one morning.

“Why is everyone awake at 5am,” Steve grumbles from underneath.

“My phone was vibrating like crazy and apparently we’re a meme,” James tells him from somewhere near his elbow. “Clint sent me all the best ones.” There’s a scuffle and from Clint’s yelp Steve thinks he’s getting pinched. “Thanks for the dick-pic, by the way.”

“Oh, I have no idea how that got in there,” Clint deadpans. Steve can’t see his eyebrow waggle but he can feel it in his soul.

He grabs both of them and rolls them onto the floor.

“Stee-_eeeve!”_

“No more cuddle piles until after coffee,” he tells them.

“Thanks,” Clint says. “I accept.”

Which is how he ends up making coffee at half past five in the god damn morning. By the time it’s done Mel and Nat have invited themselves over. Which means Steve’s cup gets stolen almost before he’s poured it.

“The sun’s not even up,” he mumbles to himself while he makes another pot. “I hate Twitter.”

“This is a good thing!” Mel tells him.

“It’s an okay thing,” Nat rectifies.

Mel cuts over her. “No, no, it’s good! I mean, maybe try to lower the eye intensity next time, but at least people are thinking of you two as like, a super cute couple instead of, I dunno, like you’re just doing it for the attention.”

“That’s all well and good but Steve can’t be seen with him every single time he goes outdoors! Hydra’ll figure out that we know.”

Mel flaps her hand. “Whatever. That’s your problem. I do the media stuff and you do the Hydra stuff.”

James steals Steve’s new mug just as Steve’s about to take a sip. “I thought it was the same stuff,” he says. Steve pointedly goes to fetch James’s first mug and holds it out. James ignores him and keeps Steve’s, using it to point at Mel and Nat. “I thought media stuff and Hydra stuff were the same thing!”

“The difference is in the paperwork,” Nat tells him bluntly.

“The difference is in the _workload,”_ Mel corrects. “Of which I have more, thank you.”

“You scroll Instagram for a living, don’t start me.”

This sounds like an argument they’ve had before, because they bicker easily, trying to outdo each other.

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. “Is there a reason,” he says, exuding all the calm he can muster, “why you’re having this argument in my kitchen?”

“Oh. Right.” Mel points at Nat. “Black Windex here thinks you should let James be seen without you around.”

“Isn’t the whole point of us dating so I don’t have to do that?”

“I mean, definitely don’t leave him _alone,_ but like, why not hang out with—” she looks over at Clint like she’s about to say his name, and then she shuts her mouth like she’s decided against _that_ disaster. “Someone,” she says instead.

“I’ll hang out with you,” Clint tells James, rolling onto his back so his legs are slung over the side of the couch and he’s grinning at them upside down. “I have some movies you’ll _love.”_

Mel looks pained. “He means porn, doesn’t he?”

“Stop flirting with my boyfriend,” Steve says, pouring himself a new coffee.

Clint ignores him, blowing James an upside-down kiss. “Baby, are you my hearing aids? Coz I want you inside me.”

“Aw, stop it. I bet you say that to all Steve’s fake boyfriends.”

“Only the hot ones.”

“Chairs are made for sitting,” Steve says, throwing a spoon at him.

“Chairs can blow me. Speaking of which, how are the new digs, man?”

James lounges against the counter. “Um, you mean my luxury Stark apartment that I don’t have to pay for? Uh, yeah. It’s good. Do you guys just, like… have spare apartments lying around for your fake boyfriends?”

Nat shrugs.

“Technically,” Clint says, “you’re staying in Vision’s room. But since he doesn’t live here or like, sleep… You know.”

“Vision… Is that Floaty Red? Will I get to meet Floaty Red? Is it weird if I ask for an autograph?”

“You didn’t ask me for an autograph!”

“Yes I did, you signed my cap as ‘Widow Is Hot xoxo Gossip Girl.’”

Clint uses Steve’s spoon to point at Nat. “GG knows what she’s saying is all I’m saying.”

Nat tips her head in acknowledgement.

“So was there anything else you wanted to talk about at 5 in the morning?” Steve says pointedly.

“Well, since we’re all up, we could review a training video or three.”

James pipes up like he hadn’t heard Nat talking. “Speaking of the apartment, I have a few boxes that need unpacking, if everyone pitches in it’ll be done in no time! Why don’t we all—” The kitchen empties almost immediately.

Steve raises his mug to toast James. “Do you actually have boxes to empty?”

“Nope, I can’t take boxes out because it’ll be obvious I’ve moved in with you, and Mel says—”

“Mel says,” Steve sighs.

“I _know,_ right? Anyway Mel says that would be moving too fast, so it’s okay if I’m ‘spending the night’ every night but we haven’t moved in yet.”

“Ugh, fine, fine, fine. Has the impromptu morning meeting ended though? Can we go back to bed?”

“We have to be up in thirty minutes to go running with Sam, may as well just stay up.” James wanders out of the kitchen and into the lounge.

“This is how I know you’re not Bucky,” Steve grumbles. “Bucky would _never.”_ He immediately blushes. James is incorrigible in the topics that he’ll cover to flirt with Steve, but the Bucky thing is an untouched subject.

“Well,” says James from the lounge room, “would Bucky do… THIS!” He jumps out from behind the couch and throws a pillow at Steve.

“No,” Steve says, “no, no you, no that’s—” He has to keep swatting pillows away.

“Ha HA!” James yells. Steve puts his mug down to deflect the next pillow and James instantly jumps towards it, grabbing it one handed and drinking the whole lot in one gulp.

“Hey!”

“Snooze you lose, grandpa!”

_You’re a year older than me,_ Steve thinks.

“The pot is literally right there,” he says instead.

“Great, would you be a good fake bae and pour me another?”

“That’s like four coffees in twenty minutes.”

_“Well how else am I meant to keep up with you and Falcon?”_

“It’s not a competition,” Steve reminds him, and then gets a pillow in the face for his trouble. And another. And another. And…

“How do I even own this many pillows!?”

“Beats me, I only have _two!_ Knew that Stark guy was playing favourites.”

Steve grabs him around the waist and tackles him into the couch, piling as many pillows as he can reach on top while James swats them back.

“Betrayal!” James yells. “Treachery!” He tries to clamber over Steve’s shoulder and Steve lets him get almost halfway before putting an arm around his hips and hoisting him into the air. He picks up as many pillows as he can with his other hand. “Cheat!” James yells. “Two-handed advantage!”

“Let’s put these in your rooms where they can do less damage,” Steve says, and then carries James and the pillow-horde to the elevator.

“Put me down, you pirate swine!”

“Oh, I’m a pirate now, huh?”

“Couples roleplay, don’t they? Or would you prefer to be a dragon stealing a princess away to a tower?”

A far door opens and Bruce blearily pops his head out just as Steve says, “Oh yeah, I’ll be a dragon.” They stare at each other for a moment and then Bruce wordlessly closes his door.

The lift opens and Steve sets James on his feet so he’s got a hand free to hit the number to James’s floor.

“For the record,” James says, “any and all future roleplays must involve me being carried on your shoulder. I won’t be taking questions at this time.”

Steve snorts and then pushes him out of the lift towards his door. “Shut up and invite me in, idiot.”

James rolls his eyes but puts his hand on the screen that appears in lieu of a doorknob. “Never get tired of that,” he says when the door pops open.

The interior is astonishingly messy considering James has only lived in it for a bit over a week. “Don’t give me that look,” James says. “Stark’s robots keep cleaning up, do you know how hard it is to maintain this level of chaos when I’m up against such diligent workers?”

Steve dumps his armful of pillows onto a couch that he knows for certain Tony didn’t pick out. “Tony’s not playing favourites,” he observes. “Pepper is. That, or you’ve got so many clothes that the rest of your pillows are lost in the debris. Hang on, is that my jacket?”

“Yeah, I’m conducting an experiment.”

Steve picks up his jacket and finds Sam’s jacket underneath. “Which is?”

“Wanna see how long it takes the robots to return everyone’s shit,” he says. He takes Steve’s jacket and throws it back onto the couch on top of what looks like Black Widow lingerie in Clint Barton sizes.

“I like that jacket,” Steve mutters.

He picks through the rest of the clothes to see what else is in there, and at the bottom of the pile he finds a manila file with a big red post-it note on it. The post-it note says _‘Winter Soldier Torture’._

“Oh yeah,” James says from behind him. “Haven’t opened that one yet.”

“Do you, shit, I just remembered you said you didn’t have a therapist. Do you want me to—”

“Don’t worry about it, Stark beat you to it. Dr. McFalster and I are already big pals, except not really because he gives me homework and pals don’t do that, am I right? Also apparently I make lewd jokes when I’m stressed.”

“Me, too,” Steve says with the straightest face he can muster. James pushes him onto the clothes pile and topples after him, poking him under the ribs.

“I know you’re joking because if you made a sex joke we’d all die of shock.”

“I used to be funny,” Steve defends. “I once made Dum Dum laugh so hard he had whiskey dripping out of his nose. Anyway, that’s not. Whatever. How’s the therapy stuff going? Any, uh… Anything I need to be aware of?”

“Okay when I said McFalster and I are pals what I meant was that we’ve met three times, and one of those times was just to exchange dates when we’re free to meet next. We haven’t really done anything, but he wants to open _that_ little doozy next week, so, you know. Fun times ahead.” He pushes the folder back under a pile of clothes.

“That’s a good idea,” Steve says, a little awkwardly. “It’s uh. A lot to take in.”

“You’ve seen it, huh?”

“I found it.”

“How come you didn’t recognise me?”

_Because it never occurred to me that my best friend was the one being tortured._

“You were masked,” he says instead, quietly. He blinks and looks down, where a corner of the file is still visible. “I’m, uh. Sorry, by the way.”

“For what? For not recognising me?”

Steve shrugs. That, and so much more. “I’m glad you’re looking at it with someone else there,” he eventually manages.

“That’s what McFalster said.” Pause. “He also said I, quote unquote, need to make friends. So. That’s fun.”

Steve recognises a topic change when he sees one. He grabs the lifeline with both hands. “Is that why you want to go running with us this morning?”

“Shit! What’s the time!”

They end up getting there right on time, but Sam’s already a lap ahead of them. “I got woken up by memes of you two and one photo of a potato,” he explains.

“That’s Clint’s dick,” James tells him. “He needs better lighting, right?”

“Dibs not being the one to tell him.”

Steve rolls his eyes and starts jogging, knowing they’ll follow. It’s actually kind of nice to hear them chatting behind him. If he concentrates hard enough he could probably imagine that it’s the Howling Commandos back there, watching his six while they forge into a new area.

He tries to picture it, but he finds that it’s harder than anticipated. It doesn’t sound like Bucky behind him, it sounds like _James._

James picks up speed to come up on his right side. Steve matches his pace almost without thinking. James has the same stride as Bucky did. He shakes his head. James _is _Bucky, except, wait, _ugh_. Amnesia is _weird._

James bumps his empty shoulder against Steve’s. “There’s a guy with a camera over on the hill,” he says.

“We can ignore it,” Steve says. “Mel says—”

_“Mel says.”_

“Yeah, I know, I know, but she says amateur photos are okay, too.”

“Huh. Well, okay, then.”

“Wanna race, give em something to put on the morning news?”

“Do I look like an idiot? I’m not getting beaten by you on camera.”

Steve slows down and jogs sideways so he can reach for the knotted sleeve on James’s left side, untying it. “Well then,” he says. “What about this?” He holds the end of the empty sleeve like they’re jogging hand-in-hand.

“You’re an idiot,” James says, but he’s laughing, and Sam’s laughing behind them, too. Steve gets his phone out of his pocket and lets Bucky pull ahead a little so he can take a photo of his hand outstretched, gripping the empty sleeve like Bucky’s dragging him along. He’s about to send it to Mel but he likes it too much, so he just sends it to James instead. “I’d let you lead me anywhere,” he captions it, and then deletes the text and just sends the image.

James laughs when his phone vibrates and he sees the message, and they go another two laps hand-in-sleeve before Steve lets go and starts sprinting for real, trusting Sam to watch James and both of them to watch his back. With any luck that’ll count as ‘James hanging out with people that aren’t Steve’.

His phone vibrates.

`**James:** _Nice ass_`

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Read More for Chapter 10 is [Between The Stacks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19307746) by silverknees! Strangers to Enemies to Lovers, with a little bit of hanky panky at the end 😂😎
> 
> Enjoy xx


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